WARSAW. MAY 15. INTERFAX
C.NTRAL EUROPE - Poland's consumer-price,
CPI, inflation, declined to an annual rate of 2.3% in April from 2.5% the prior month, the Central Statistics Office (GUS) said in a communiqué Tuesday.
The figure, in line with expectations, will confirm expectations of a pause in rate hikes, analysts said.
CPI inflation rose 0.5% month-on-month (m/m), driven primarily by a 0.9% jump in food prices, a figure well above seasonal trends. Transport prices, meanwhile, leapt 1.9% over the previous month, though the annual rate grew a more-modest 1.3%.
"This allows the [Monetary Policy Council] MPC some breathing space, and is in line with our expectations of a rate hike only in October," ING Bank's chief economist for Poland, Mateusz Szczurek, said.
Inflation hit a two-year high in March at exactly the monetary-policy target of 2.5%, prompting rate setters to hike the key interest rate by 25 basis points to 4.25%. The council signaled the move was not the beginning of a tightening cycle and analysts expect a pause, though many think rates will rise to 4.5% in July.
The market now expects core inflation, excluding the volatile items of food and fuel prices, at around 1.4% in April, lower than the 1.7% reading in March.