Czech statisticians corrected the May consumer prices (inflation) development to 2.4% year on year (chart).

This is slower than the 2.8% y/y flash estimate released last week, but still a 0.6 percentage point acceleration on the 1.8% y/y April easing. Month on month, inflation increased by 0.5%.

The y/y growth “was weakened by fuel prices for the tenth consecutive month,” Pavla Šedivá of the Czech Statistical Office (CZSO) commented, adding that “diesel was sold for CZ32.70” (€1.32) per litre in May, and “petrol Natural 95 for CZK33.90 (€1.37) per litre, on average.”

This was “the lowest value since June 2023 and in the case of petrol Natural 95 even since September 2021,” she added.

Acceleration in food and non-alcoholic beverages (+5.4% y/y) was a significant driver of the price growth, with prices of meat accelerating to 3.6% (up on 1.4% in April), cheese and curd to 6.8% (5.4% in April), eggs to 44.3% (37.1% in April), fruits to 15% (12.8% in April) and chocolate products to 23.4% (17.8%).

The second most significant category was prices in housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels, which rose by 5.7%.  

Analysts surveyed by the Czech Press Agency (ČTK) expect the inflation to accelerate up to 3% y/y in June before easing to the 2% Czech National Bank (CNB) target level.

“At this moment, three pro-inflationary trends are visible: growing prices in food, services and apartments,” head economist of Banka Creditas, Petr Dufek, was quoted as saying by the ČTK, adding that food prices could slow down during the peaking agricultural season, while “nothing signals” that anything could change services price growth.