Developments in inflation and its determinants
The annual CPI inflation rate consolidated in positive territory, reaching 0.85 percent in June, after having posted a notable increase in Q2 (+0.67 percentage points versus end-Q1). Its path reflected upward domestic pressures, arising from the pick-up in companies’ production costs, whose pass-through into end-user prices for consumer goods is favoured by the opening of the positive output gap.
National Bank of Romania has published the monetary indicators. At end-June 2017, broad money (M3) amounted to RON 321,759.6 million, up 0.1 percent (0.1 percent in real terms) month on month. In year-on-year comparison, broad money rose 9.0 percent (8.1 percent in real terms).
The annual inflation rate advanced to a slightly higher-than-projected 0.64 percent in May 2017, after resuming in April the growth that had been discontinued in March 2017 (0.61 percent, against 0.18 percent). Behind this stood chiefly the step-up in core inflation and the slower negative growth of administered prices, as well as the rise in volatile food prices. The effects of these determinants were partially offset by the impact of slower annual fuel price dynamics, amid a renewed decline in the global oil price.
According to the Inflation Report published by the NBR, during the period from October 2016 to January 2017, the number of employees in the economy kept rising at the relatively robust pace it had posted since the beginning of 2016 (+3.5 percent in annual terms). The advance was further ascribable to hiring in market services in particular, with trade, administrative and support service activities, and transport making significant contributions, bolstered by the brisk pace of increase of consumption.
The annual inflation rate remained relatively steady in March 2017, standing at 0.18 percent, against 0.2 percent in the prior month, in line with the NBR (National Bank of Romania) projection. Behind this stood the slowdown in the annual dynamics of fuel prices, which offset the effects of the faster increase in volatile food prices and of the higher adjusted CORE2 inflation rate (calculated by excluding from the consumer price index the following categories: administered prices, volatile prices, and tobacco and alcoholic beverage prices.), whose annual rate crept up to 1.04 percent, from 0.91 percent in February.
