Despite a price freeze on basic goods...

Despite a price freeze on basic goods and services, inflation jumped 8.8% in June, up slightly from May’s rate, the government said. Accumulated inflation for the past 12 months hit 229.7%, the highest annual rate of inflation in Peru’s history, the National Statistics Institute said. A respected economic analysis company, Apoyo S.A., reported even higher inflation figures for June, saying consumer prices increased an average of 11.3%. The company forecast inflation of at least 400% this year, up from 114% in 1987. President Alan Garcia, a populist, has said he will not act to curb inflation if it means modifying a rapid-growth economic program designed to create jobs and offset the challenge of the leftist Shining Path insurgency. Peru is Latin America’s sixth-largest debtor nation with foreign debt of $14.9 billion.