(Bloomberg) -- Polish inflation quickened beyond the official target range for the first time in more than a year driven by higher fuel prices, though the jump is unlikely to shift interest rates from a record low.
Driven by higher global energy costs, consumer prices rose 4.3% from a year earlier in April after gaining 3.2% in March, preliminary data published Friday showed. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey was for a 3.9% increase. Inflation rose 0.7% from the previous month.
The acceleration comes as the European Union’s largest eastern economy gears up to ease lockdown restrictions that have been keeping the pandemic at bay -- potentially adding to upward pressure on prices.
While the central bank has already raised this year’s inflation forecast to an average 3.1%, it’s joining other countries in the region in labeling the current shift higher as temporary.
- Inflation has left the the central bank’s tolerance range “for many quarters. A jump in prices following the opening up of the economy could drive inflation prints close to 5% toward the end of the year,” MBank SA economists said on Twitter
- “Easing restrictions and opening the services sector will especially increase price pressure in that part of the economy and will likely push headline CPI up,” said Malgorzata Krzywicka, an economist at Erste Group in Vienna
- Central bank Governor Adam Glapinski has repeatedly said that inflation will gradually slow toward 2.5%, the mid-point of the target range, justifying benchmark borrowing costst staying at 0.1% until 2022
- Agata Filipowicz-Rybicka, chief economist at Alior Bank, doesn’t see any interest-rate hike before the last quarter of 2022. For now, she expects the Monetary Policy Council to accept greater inflationary pressure “in the environment of the still-uncertain economic situation”
©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
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