Economics: Core inflation remains high in February

MEXICO - Report 13 Mar 2023 by Mauricio Gonzalez and Francisco González

On Thursday, March 10, inflation figures were released showing that the index increased 7.6% at an annual rate. This represented a reduction with respect to the previous month (7.91%) and to what the market expected, but only due to the non-core component, since the core index continues to register high annual increases (8.3%). In this sense, the lower inflation in February is not considered to be the beginning of a pronounced deceleration in price increases, given that the non-core index was basically influenced by the low annual rate increases in energy prices and government-authorized tariffs.

On the other hand, a worrisome aspect is that within the core index, merchandise inflation remained high (10.6%), similar to that of previous months, basically due to the processed food and beverages component, which increased 13.7%. Likewise, the increase in the prices of services has accelerated in recent months, rising from 4.4% at the beginning of 2022 to 5.6% in February 2023, with an expectation that they will increase at a higher rate in the coming months.

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