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FACT LOWEST SINCE 1977
Inflation reaches historic high of 1.81% in April
The Consumer Price Index closed the first quarter of the year with a negative variation of 0.06%


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BY MARÍA FERNANDA CISNEROS / maria.cisneros@elfinancierocr.com / 05 MAY 2015, 10:50 a.m.
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NEWS / 24 JUL 2014 / GN FILE FOR EF
In detailing the change in prices between March and April this year, the largest increase was gasoline.
Super gasoline began the year at ¢ 672 per liter and now worth ¢ 816.
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Annual inflation, measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), closed last April with a variation of 1.81% , according to the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC).

This figure is lower than that registered in the country since it began this measurement (1976) . The lowest levels that were observed were of 2.57% in November 2009 and 2.60% in February 1977.

Furthermore, the result of 1.87 percentage points in April is below what it reported in the same month in 2014.

Is I is the fifth consecutive month in which inflation slows , reaching what some economists envisioned since the beginning of the year, that is, the indicator could be located soon below the target range of the Central Bank of Costa Rica (BCCR), established between 3% and 5%.

Even last month, Eduardo Prado, manager of Central, had warned of the possibility that the indicator will temporarily be reduced to below that range.

At the time, he said that there were events in the external and internal context that, if adopted, could bring inflation down in the coming months.

Other reports also projected the same, as is the case study of economic prospects of the University of Costa Rica (UCR), which last week estimated inflation located between 1% and 2% for June .

According to the Central, the reasons for the decline in the CPI are focused on the external front, in the evolution of raw materials, especially oil . In the local scene, weather conditions have favored the production of certain agricultural goods, as well as downward adjustments in rates of some regulated utilities.

After the announcement of the result of inflation for the month of April, the Central stressed its commitment to objetitvo range indicator . He stressed that will remain vigilant of the evolution of the variables that determine inflation, in order to adjust the monetary policy stance consistent with the target.
In detailing the results of the variation for each group making up the CPI, the most significant drop was in transport, down 5.44% , followed by clothing and footwear with a negative figure of 1.11% .

In contrast, the highest growth were food and non-alcoholic beverages (6.43%) , followed closely by the health segment, which increased by 6.41%. Others who rebounded were education (5.64%) and miscellaneous goods and services (5.57%).

End of the first quarter
The IPC closed the first four months of the year with a negative variation of 0.06% .

The drop was mostly driven by a fall of 4.12% in the transport category, 2.41% for rent and housing services.

Meanwhile, the segments were more rebounded education (5.19%), alcoholic beverages and cigarrllos (2.78%) and health (2.47%).

The April monthly change was negative by 0.08% .

The CPI consumption basket make 292 the goods and services and of these, 48% price increase from March, while 39% fell and the remaining 13% saw no change.

Which they increased were gasoline, potatoes, cigarettes, lemon acid and prescription glasses .

On the other side, those who perceived a decrease were electricity, the green beans, eggs, paint for housing and banana.
elfinancierocr.com/finanzas/inflacion-IPC-INEC-Banco_Central_0_731926802.html

All bus fares went down 3% yesterday.

"The inflation rate in Costa Rica was recorded at -0.86 percent in September of 2015. Inflation Rate in Costa Rica averaged 15.40 percent from 1977 until 2015, reaching an all time high of 108.89 percent in September of 1982 and a record low of -0.86 percent in September of 2015. Inflation Rate in Costa Rica is reported by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos de Costa Rica."

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/costa-rica/inflation-cpi

Deflation I would think related principally to fuel imports.

Thanks to Wiseash for his posting.

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bypassin' kinky, and usin' the whole chicken!!!

This thread and the one on devaluation of the Colon shows that mongers do have various intellectul pursuits, one of them being economics.
My only observation on the subject is that there are many economic schools of thought and it seems to me that economics is not an exact science even though it uses a combination of mathematics, statistics and various social schools of thought so we have communist, socialist , capitalist etc. economists.
All I know is that for most people in most countries the longer you live the more expensive everything becomes and every government of every country twists economic data to suit its goals.
So you read of no increase in the CPI for example when nearly all the prices of neccesties have gone up !

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Softbob

There is nothing either good or bad
but thinking makes it so.
HAMLET

Do you live there? I don't really know what's happening on the streets, but went through Walmart last trip and took fotos of meat prices to start watching it.

CPI calcs do not factor end-chain profit margins, so as commodities get cheaper (and profits rise) the price may stay stable, but the CPI can be reported as fluctuating. And you are right: gov'ts report what they want, though I do not believe in wholesale manipulations. Too many published data measures would show it up to knowledgeable people.

Have prices risen this year, typically, or differently? The colón has been stable against the dollar, so I'm interested to see what the locals see as prices.

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bypassin' kinky, and usin' the whole chicken!!!

Isra made a very insightful observation, that economics is not an exact science, and modern economists have done the profession a great disservice by trying to pretend that it is.
The fact is that economics is a social science, because it depends upon the behaviour of people, which is unpredictable.
So it becomes a great embarrassment to 'mathematical' economists (which I studied in post grad and found to be interesting but completely irrelevant to the real world) that their models always fail to predict the future accurately.
Imagine that, economists can't even predict the future! What a useless profession!
What economics can do is, like a good doctor telling you the difference between healthy and unhealthy behaviour, tell you which policies are beneficial to wealth creation and which lead to ruin.
But no one can say exactly how or when the result of policies will manifest. It's just too complicated, with too many independent actors (6 billion) and too many external, unpredictable events happening.
Virtually every government in the world today is following the disastrous policies of Keynes or some form of welfare statism/mixed economy, which are destined for failure, guaranteed, but since I can't put an exact date and time of the next crisis I'm dismissed as an alarmist, or just plain wrong.
That would be fine if not for the fact that the same people who say I'm wrong then don't later demand that I bail them out of the trouble they get into. But they always do. And to top it off they then blame 'capitalism' for the crisis, when it's the relentless move away from capitalism that has us lurching from crisis to crisis, but hey, no place for politico/economic debates here! lol

Sorry but not "ALL" went down. All 6 different bus routes that stop at the bus stop closest to my place went UP 5 colones (less than 2%) to c340 and this is just a week or so after they had the largest increase in the 10 years I have been living in San Pedro. That increase was about 24%--c270 to c335.

These 6 routes are 3 different companies. The other company that runs several routes more in central San Pedro (not out to where I live) did not raise their price either time. As of today they were still c270 as they have been for several months.

By the way, all were c140 ten years ago.

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Old and retired but still bang, and bang, and bang!!!

One of the major problems with figuring inflation of food here (CR) is the extremely wide difference in price depending on where you shop. Recently a fresh pork shoulder roast was c7200 per kl. in Auto Mercado, c5700 in Walmart, c5400 in MasxMenos (owned by Walmart), c4700 in Pali (owned by Walmart), and c2700 in the market area at C8 and Ave5.

Bananas as of a couple days ago were 65 colones each in Pali, about 40 colones in the above mentioned market area, and c115 in Auto Mercado. And 10 years ago they were c19 each in Auto Mercado.

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Old and retired but still bang, and bang, and bang!!!

This is why the CPI does not review end-chain pricing.

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bypassin' kinky, and usin' the whole chicken!!!

Proposal to create a higher minimum wage gets a chilly reception
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

A top union leader got an icy reception Wednesday when he appeared at a legislative committee that is considering a revision in the way minimum wage is calculated.

The union leader, Albino Vargas, spoke in favor of the measure that would boost the basic mandatory minimum wage about 35 percent from the current 230,000 colons (about $435.60) a month to 313,000 colons (about $592.80).

Some members of the Comisión Permanente de Asuntos Económicos said they thought that such an increase would cause more unemployment.

Vargas heads the Asociación Nacional de Empleados Públicos y Privados. He supported the bill that would base the minimum wage on the amount of money a family would need to live an average life. The Comisión Nacional de Salarios would compute the various costs such as food, telephone, housing and similar expense to arrive at a minimum living wage, according to the bill.

Vargas noted that the higher amounts would be staged in over time. Right now the salary commission fixes minimum wages every six months based on negotiations between employees and employers. The bill would anchor the wage not to the inflation rate but to what normal expenses really are. The costs would be determined by national surveys.

The bill, No. 19.312, is similar to measures introduced in the past.

Lawmakers Juan Marín Quirós, Michael Arce Sancho and Lorelly Trejos Salas of the Partido Liberación Nacional reported later that the bill lacked a technical study, analysis and support. They also said that only 15 percent of the firms in Costa Rica are transnationals and that the rest are locally owned small and medium enterprises.

The increase in the minimum wage would have a domino effect on other salaries.

The salary commission sets minimum wages for every job classification, so an increase in the lower level would mean increases all the way to the top.

The meeting took place about the same time that the government proposed that the wage increase for the first half of 2016 would be just 0.67 of a percent.

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bypassin' kinky, and usin' the whole chicken!!!