The Czech Statistical Office released January's inflation figures. CPI increased by 1.5%, month-on-month, and 3.7%, year-on-year. Our forecast and market consensus amounted to 1.4%. Thus, inflation has slid down six times in last six months. Forces pushing CPI up can be found in administrative price changes (deregulation), rising food prices and a typical effect of re-pricing at the beginning of the year. On the other hand, we could observe another drop of fuel prices and seasonal decrease of clothing and footwear.
The Labor ministry released unemployment figures for January. The rate of unemployment jumped to 9.4% (Patria forecast: 9.3%, consensus: 9.2%) from 8.9% in December. The increase can be ascribed to seasonal factors mainly. However, we can see also an increase of seasonally adjusted figures in several last months. Conditions on the Czech Labor market are getting tougher.
The opposition Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) and the Freedom Union-Democratic Union (US-DEU) will run together in the mid-June lower house elections under the name of Coalition.
The central bank CNB last year sustained a preliminary loss of CZK 28.6bn, while a year earlier it made a profit of CZK 2.5bn. The profit is influenced mainly by the exchange rate of the Czech koruna, as its strengthening is reflected in a decrease in the koruna value of the CNB's foreign exchange reserves which make up a major part of the bank's assets.
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