The inflation wave isn’t behind us, but at least it’s coming down out of the stratosphere. New numbers from the Czech Statistics Office put April’s y-o-y price increases at “just” 12.7%, a full 2.3 percentage points lower than it reported in March. (That’s a 20% decline, according to Chat GPT). The biggest climbdown in the inflation basket came from food, which was just 17% more expensive compared to April 2022. Not only that, but food prices actually fell month-on-month compared to March 2023 – the first such m-o-m drop in food prices since October 2021. Overall, m-o-m CPI actually fell by 0.2 pct points. Prices were also slightly lower for alcohol, transport, culture and for some tourism services. Akcenta analyst Miroslav Novák told HN that CPI figures should continue to fall in the coming months. “The likelihood of annualized inflation heading below 10% as early as July has greatly increased following these April figures.”
