Colombia | Inflation continues its upward trend, in February it reached 8.01%

Summary

Inflation surprised once again the average consensus of market analysts with an increase of 1.63% in the monthly variation and 8.01% in the annual comparison. Core inflation stood at 1.28%, being the highest monthly variation for February in the last decade, even above that of 2016, a year of a historic living cost rise.

Key points

• Key points:
• The food and non-alcoholic beverages division contributed the most to the final inflationary result, decreasing 53 bps compared to January with a monthly change of 3.26%. Perishable goods maintained the leading role with high monthly variations. However, the basket decelerated in comparison to those seen in January.
• The accommodation and utilities division was the second largest contributor to February's price rise, with an increase of 0.71%. In this case, rents showed the greatest pressures, followed by energy and gas.
• The education division surprised the market rising less than expected in February, reaching a monthly variation of 4.48%. Enrollments in higher education are still affected by public policies and by a slow recovery of tariffs in private universities.
• In addition to the food basket, the administered prices basket showed a significant annual variation of 9.3%, followed by the tradable goods basket, which varied by 6.1%, while the non-tradable goods basket lagged behind with only 1.5% annual variation.

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