Prices downward trend halted
Prices did not continue their downward trend
in the second quarter of 2016; instead, higher
crude oil prices resulted in steep increases
across nearly all stages of the economy com-
pared to the first quarter.
Excluding energy,
however, the underlying inflation dynamics
remained muted, whereby the decline at the
upstream stages tailed off noticeably.
While the
rate of price increases at the consumer level in-
tensifed somewhat, even after stripping out
energy, this was mainly attributable to excep-
tional factors.
Thus the surge in the price of
commercial goods excluding energy can largely
be explained by fluctuations in the prices of
clothing and footwear, which have become
signifcantly more volatile in recent years.
More-
over, an adjustment to the minimum tax rate
resulted in higher tobacco prices. As the rate of
inflation had likewise increased sharply in the
second quarter of 2015, the year-on-year in-
crease as measured by the national consumer
price index (CPI) dipped slightly to +0.1% and
to 0.0% as defned by the Harmonised Index of
Consumer Prices (HICP).
EU Forecast
euf:ba18a:16/nws-01