The Central Statistical Office (KSH) said Hungary’s consumer price index rose by an annual 8.3 percent in February, a high not last seen since August 2007, and up from 7.9 percent in the previous month. Analysts had forecast inflation of 8.1 percent. Month on month, consumer prices increased by 1.1 percent in February. Fuel and food prices were the main drivers of inflation. Food prices increased by an annual 11.3 percent, vehicle fuel prices by 18.7 percent, while alcoholic beverages and tobacco prices rose by 8.2 percent.
The National Bank of Hungary said food and industrial goods prices drove the February data, while core inflation was fuelled by processed food, industrial goods and services. Fuel prices contributed 1.3 percentage points to headline inflation, the analysis shows. The NBH pointed to a “higher pace of repricing”, driven by higher global commodity and energy prices manifesting “quickly and across a wide range of product groups”. It noted that a temporary government rollback of prices for some staples from February had “restrained the increase in food prices”. The NBH’s measure of core inflation excluding indirect tax effects rose to 8.1% in February from 7.4 percent in the previous month. The NBH said the indicators measuring households’ inflation expectations “showed unusually high volatility”.
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