Building material price inflation in Croatia reaches 1.2% in May

Building material price inflation in Croatia reaches 1.2% in May
While producer prices of building materials in Croatia are rising, the country's industrial producer price inflation remains behind the EU average
By bne IntelliNews June 13, 2017

Producer prices of building materials in Croatia rose 1.2% y/y in May, after rising 0.99% y/y in April, the statistics institute announced on June 13.

The producer building material price index turned to posting annual growths in September and annual inflations have continued since then. Building material prices inflation slowed down to 0.10% y/y in January but showed an escalation for the following four months.

Producer prices of building material rose 0.1% m/m in April, following 0.1% m/m decline in the previous month, according to data from the statistics office.

Croatia’s industrial producer prices turned to growth in December, three months later compared to building material prices, and they remained in positive territory during the first five months of the year. Annual industrial producer price inflation in Croatia slowed down from 2.9% y/y in April to 1.8% y/y in May.

Despite the improving trend in 2017, industrial producer price inflation in Croatia remains behind the EU average, which increased to 4.8% y/y in April from 4.6% a month ago.

In December, Croatian consumer prices posted the first annual increase of 0.2% since June 2015. CPI deflation in Croatia bottomed out with a 1.8% annual decline in May 2016 and has been on an upward trend until March 2017 thanks to rising oil prices and strengthening private consumption backed by the favourable tourism season in summer 2016.

Croatia's consumer prices rose 1.4% y/y in Aprilaccelerating from a 1.1% increase in March.

The Croatian Central Bank (HNB) forecasts that annual inflation will increase to 1.6% in 2017. In February, the European Commission hiked its average inflation forecast for 2017 to 1.7%, comparing favourably with the -0.9% in the Spring Forecast.

In April, the IMF also revised its 2017 average CPI inflation forecast to 1.1% from 0.8% in October. The fund forecasts CPI inflation will rise to 0.8% at end-2017.

The three–year disinflation period is behind Croatia, and average 2017 CPI inflation might reach 1.9% y/y in 2017, according to Raiffeisen Bank.

Data

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