The financial threat is especially serious for Graciela Bevacqua, who lost her job as head of INDEC in 2007 for refusing to tamper with the price index.
"There is considerable evidence to suggest that Japanese consumers substituted domestic purchases for overseas travel in the wake of the terrorist attacks, " said Ron Bevacqua, chief economist at Commerzbank Securities.
Graciela Bevacqua, the professional statistician responsible for the consumer-price index (CPI) until Mr Moreno forced her out, says that he tried to get her to omit decimal points, not round them.