The inflation registered a sharp drop in March, with a variation that went from 4.71% to 3.80% year-on-year, and after the third consecutive drop it marks a new month within the target range established by the Central Bank of Uruguay (BCU).
The data comes from the latest report on the estimates of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) prepared by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), corresponding to last March; which demonstrates, in turn, the tenth consecutive month within the range between 3% and 6% set as the government’s objective.
He CPI registered a practically zero monthly variation of 0.02% while the accumulated annual variation reached 2.20%, establishing the General Index number at 106.85.
In the comparison to March 2023, the number of General index was 102.94; while the accumulated monthly variation then was 0.9%, and the annual variation was 3.50%. During the third month of last year, the CPI estimate reached 7.33% year-on-year.
How did the prices of the different items behave?
When evaluating the divisions with the greatest impact on the percentage variation of the CPI, the main one was Food and non-alcoholic beveragess (-0.15%), followed by living place (0.06) and Education services (0.07).
Regarding each product, the fruits and nuts represented the largest negative variation, with a decrease of 3.18%, driven by improvements in the prices of bananas (-6.85%), apples (-13.18%) and pears (-7.50 ); while the foods in this category with the most increases were lemons (9.32%), oranges (10.90%), tangerines (2.53%) and peaches (12.66%).
On the other hand, there was a 1.70% reduction in the prices of fresh, chilled or frozen meat and its derivatives, as well as an increase of 0.65% in vegetables, tubers and legumes, among which, for example, the price of lettuce stood out, with an increase of 8.67%.
In turn, the services of education had an increase of 1.99%, where the increases stood out in Preschool education (2.29%), in Primary education (2.15%), in Secondary education (2.08%), Music courses, singing, dance, plastic arts (3.64%) and language teaching (2.25%). For their part, Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels were impacted by an increase of 0.47%, with the variation in the price of recharging the supergas bottle (5.21%) as the most significant. ; and Transport rose 0.09%, driven by the values of gasoline and diesel.
Source: Ambito
