Colombia | Total inflation remained stable in March, core inflation continued to rise

In March, monthly inflation was 1.05% and annual inflation 13.34%, close to market analysts' expectations and to that expected by BBVA Research. On the other hand, core inflation accelerated 56 bps in the annual variation compared to February's figure, standing at 11.42%.

Key points

• Key points:
• Food inflation continued to decline in annual terms in March, dropping 235 bps to 21.8%, largely as a result of a high base of comparison. Within this division, perishables showed the largest decline.
• Administered prices, on the other hand, showed the largest increase in the month (87 bps), standing at 14.7% in the comparison against March 2022. The largest contributions in this basket came from fuels, electricity, transport and gas.
• In goods, the leading role continues to be taken by the subclasses of vehicles and household cleaning and personal hygiene products, associated with high external prices, leading to an increase in the inflation of the basket of 70 bps, which reaches an annual inflation of 15.1%.
• Inflation of goods and services may be reflecting a gradually moderating demand.
• BBVA Research expects inflation to remain high for a few more months and to start falling in the second half of the year. Thus, we maintain our inflation expectations for the end of 2023 at 9% and for 2024 at 5%.

Authors

Geographies

Topics

Tags