Inflation rebounds slightly to 3.1% in October and stands at 16-month highs
consumer prices They accelerated again in October, reaching 3.1% above the level recorded in the same month last year. The National Institute of Statistics (INE) has published this Thursday its advance of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) which places interannual inflation uone tenth above the September record.
In this way, the CPI reaches a new high in the last 16 months. To find a greater increase in inflation, we would have to go back to June 2024, when prices were growing at a rate of 3.4% year-on-year. With regards to the core inflation —that which deducts from the calculation the prices of energy and unprocessed food, which are more volatile— there is also an increase of one tenth, up to 2.5%. This indicator is important because it reflects the extent to which the price increase is structural or temporary.
The items that explain the rise in consumer prices are, fundamentally, electricity, air transport and railwayswhich were offset by the drop in the price of gasoline compared to October 2024. However, we will have to wait for the INE to publish the detailed data by category, something that will not happen until mid-November.
October inflation data are quite in line with analyst forecasts such as Funcas – a study center for the former savings banks – which predicted that the CPI would remain around 3% in September and October.
The projections indicate that price increases will slow down from November until falling to around 2% in January of next year. Levels that most central banks consider a desirable increase in prices.
