The Hungarian CPI was better than market expectations in November, up only 0.1% y/y or 7.1% y/y. Core inflation rose 0.7% m/m, declined to 8.4% y/y from 8.5% last month.
November inflation beat analyst expectations as it increased only by 0.1% m/m. The year on year figure plummeted from 7.6% to 7.1%. The main reason was the plunge in fuel prices: transportation prices fell 1.7% m/m, even more than last month. Food prices slowed their pace compared to last year, posting a mere 0.2% m/m. Another strong slowdown was posted by the ‘Housing, electricity, water, gas and other fuels’ category. Except for seasonal trends, we can say that the nearly all categories of the consumer basket slightly decelerated the pace of their prices. The consumer durables, one of the items closely followed by the central bank, declined 0.2% m/m and sunk to –0,1 y/y.
The fact that the overall inflation was primarily brought down by foods and fuels is reflected in the core inflation, which rose 0.7% m/m and declined only to 8.4% y/y from 8.5% y/y last month.
Nevertheless, the central bank watches the overall inflation, which approached the midpoint of the target band for this December (6-8%). As prices rose +0.3% in December 2000, we may expect the CPI to moderate to 7.0% or even slightly below this level in December 2001. The structure of the inflation should be in line with central bank’s wishes. The central bank may also expect that the current low oil prices will be maintained in the future. Therefore we predict another rate cut at the beginning of the next year.
(Jakub Dvorak, CSOB)