A stall selling vegetables in Mexico City. Graciela López (CUARTOSCURO)
The rise in prices gives Mexico a break at the beginning of the year.
Inflation stood at 7.13% per year in the first half of January, the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi) revealed on Monday.
Although it remains well above the Bank of Mexico's target of 3% -a year ago it stood at 3.33% per year-, this is the third consecutive reduction since the peak of 7.7% per year at the end of November .
Some products continue to rise, such as lemons, while LP gas and other foods show decreases.
Core inflation, the one that the Bank of Mexico takes into account when making its monetary policy decisions, stood at 6.11% per year, the highest level for this same period since 2001, and advanced 0.34% compared to the previous fortnight.
As for the non-core, which includes more volatile products such as fuels, prices rose by 0.53% fortnightly and 10.2% annually.
By products, the ones that became more expensive in the first half of January were lemons, with a fortnightly increase of 36.8%, and potatoes, with 11.6%.
On the other hand, air transport fell 33.6% and tomato, 15.2%.
LP gas, fuel used by the vast majority of Mexican households and whose rising prices have focused the attention of the Government, decreased by 1.1%.
Mexico closed 2021 with the highest inflation rate in 21 years, 7.36%, due to the sustained increase in food and fuel prices.
The recovery in demand after the worst of the pandemic and the impact it still has on supply chains are behind the global phenomenon.
Faced with inflation, the Bank of Mexico has voted increases in the interest rate.
It now stands at 5.5%, after the fifth consecutive increase in mid-December.
The Governing Board also revised upwards its inflation projections for this year.
However, the slowdown in price increases at the beginning of the year may give strength to opinions that advocate stopping, or at least moderating, the rise in rates.
Deputy Governor Gerardo Esquivel has opposed this policy on several occasions, considering that inflation is a transitory phenomenon.
“This downward trend will continue in subsequent months as some level effects seen last year unravel.
The most obvious will be that of gasoline, since its annual variation, although positive, will begin to decrease significantly,” he wrote two weeks ago.
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