Inflationen i eurozonen er meget svag, og den holdes nede af et fald i priserne i servicesektoren – især priser, der har forbindelse med rejser og ferier, skriver ABN Amro. Det er den langvarige pandemi og de langstrakte vaccinationer, der holder igen på befolkningernes feriemuligheder. Men selv når der sker en vis normalisering af tilværelsen, ventes kerneinflationen at være lav i år samt både næste år og i 2023.
Uddrag fra ABN Amro:
Underlying inflationary pressures weak in the eurozone
Euro Macro: Core inflation slides as drag from holiday prices intensifies –
The final estimate of Eurozone inflation for April confirmed the headline rate at 1.6% yoy up from 1.3% in March. However, the core rate was revised down to 0.7% (from 0.8% in the preliminary estimate) and down from 0.9% in March.
Looking at the components, service sector inflation was the driver behind the fall (down to 0.9% from 1.3%). The decline in service sector inflation can be entirely explained by prices of items related to travel (flights, accommodation and package holidays), with the drag on service sector inflation intensifying to 0.4 percentage points from 0.1 percentage point in March.
The drag from those items peaked in the autumn of last year and subsequently eased, also helped by a re-weighting of those items in the HICP basket because of the collapse in travel spending. The reason behind the recent intensification of price falls for holidays is unclear, given that these sectors have remained weak during the entire period.
Looking forward, there are some potential sources of upward pressure for core inflation. There is a base effect from last year’s German VAT cut, which should push up inflation this summer. In addition, prices in some sectors most impacted by the restrictions, which have fallen sharply, could see some normalisation. The holiday-related items discussed above are a case in point.
Having said that, we would not expect this to be on a very broad scale, as seen recently with the surge in US core inflation. This is because inflation in some of the service sectors that should have been most affected by the lockdown has actually not moved that much.
More fundamentally, we think core inflation will settle at very low levels in 2022 and 2023.
