Thursday, January 12, 2017

Oil and electricity the fires of inflation – Västerbottens-kuriren (the Courier)

Economy. Inflation is rising at an increasingly rapid pace and is now close to the Riksbank’s target of two per cent. A large part of the increase is due to rising prices of oil and electricity. Economists ‘ views on whether the inflation rate is going apart.

Facts

Annual rate as percentage.

the CPIF is the CPI calculated with a fixed mortgage rate and is the measure that the Riksbank primarily to use as a basis for its assessments.

Source: SCB

consumer Prices rise more than in a long time. The underlying inflation, the CPIF, adjusted for changes in interest rates, rose in december to 1.9 per cent, compared with 1.6 per cent the month before, according to Statistics sweden (SCB). Decembersiffran is the highest in six years.

the Expectation was that the figure would land on the 1.8-1.9 per cent and the Riksbank’s target is a CPIF inflation of 2.0 per cent.

“we can say that the Riksbank’s interest rate policy has managed to get inflation up,” says Peter Malmqvist, chief analyst at Remium.

upward trend

in particular higher prices of fuel and electricity drives the development. Malmqvists assessment is that electricity and oil prices have left the bottom and will not drop more. He believes that the inflation rate continues to rise above the target.

— If you look at the inflationstrenden last year, you can see a clear rising trend. It explained a large part of the extremely low inflation has to do with these one-off effects that now seem the other way, ” says Malmqvist, and aimed at interest rates and energy prices.

His assessment is that there is an upward pressure on the general price situation in Sweden, which raises inflation expectations.

Volatile factors affecting

Other economists, including at major banks, do not see the same trend, and argue that the increase in energy prices is too uncertain for the trend to be considered as persistent.

— It is a little fragile upturn when it rests on prices that are volatile. Our forecast is that the annual rate goes down a little bit in the coming months, in January to 1.5 per cent for the CPIF, says Tor Borg, chief economist at the state Swedbank.

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