The Consumer Defense Unit of the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) published its survey of prices March and detected increases of up to 34% on some products. However, it also registered reductions of up to 14% in others.
In its “Monthly Report on the Consumer Price Information System”, the MEF followed the evolution of the price of 85 stock items (food, drinks, cleaning and toiletries) and fruits/vegetables of the 200 most representative brands in 636 supermarkets, self-service stores and pharmacies throughout the country.
There, he found that a group of 102 items record increases prices last month. On average, the increase in this segment was 2.9% on average.
The biggest increases occurred in products such as apple, which had a rise 22.76%, going from an average of 85.10 pesos to 104.47 pesos per kilo; the butter lettuce (31.59%), which went from 65.76 pesos to 86.54 pesos per kilo and, first of all, the Valencian orange (34.03%), which began March at 69.40 pesos and ended at 93.01 pesos per kilo.
another group of 75 itemshowever, presented reductions of prices of a average of 1.4% down. Among them, the american tomatothat fell 6.47% and it went from an average value of 127.62 pesos to 119.37 pesos per kilo; he non-instant packaged coffee (-7.21%), which went from 288.90 pesos to 268 pesos per 250 grams; and the zucchini squash, (-14.17%), from 88.10 pesos to 76.62 pesos per kilo.
For its part, the report notes that other 23 products kept its price unchanged at the end of March, that is, at the same levels as at the beginning of the month.
If the evolution of prices is analyzed according to the geographic locationthe product with the highest price increase and reduction were also the Valencian orange and the zucchini squash respectively, both in the department of Montevideo.
Inflation was 7.33% year-on-year in March
He Statistics National Institute (INE) reported that the CPI (Consumer Price Index) corresponding to the month of March rose 0.9%driven particularly by the increase in prices of fruits and vegetableswhat happened with 10.9% and 12.3%, respectively. This is largely reflecting the impact of the drought, which pushed up the price of several of these products.
inflation march ine.jpg
In March the year-on-year inflation dropped to 7.33%, after having settled at 7.55% in February. This is how the sixth consecutive loss of annual inflation in Uruguay, after having reached a peak of almost 10% in September of last year. The March record is the minimum annual inflation since July 2021.
Source: Ambito
