Inflation rise takes central bank and analysts by surprise

It's farewell to declines in the NBR interest rate until the end of the year; the Romanian currency will continue to strengthen against the euro because the central bank will try to temper prices of import goods. These are the main effects anticipated by analysts after the negative surprise of February inflation, when the annual rate abruptly leapt from 6.9% to 7.6%.

Although visible both on the cash receipts issued in supermarkets and on marketplace stands, the 1.8% month-on-month price increase calculated by the Statistics Institute came as a big surprise both for analysts and the NBR. The price of potatoes went up by more than 10% in February, flour became 2% more expensive, the price of vegetable oil rose 2.7%, that of bread went up 2.3%, while the price of milk rose 2.4%.

According to ZF calculations based on prices of products listed on hypermarket shelves, flour, sugar, vegetable oil and potatoes became over 30% more expensive between July 2010 and February 2011.

Food producers warned in the autumn of last year that a wave of price hikes was coming, largely prompted by the increase in the price of raw materials, but NBR governor Mugur Is`rescu called them "blabbermouths" and accused the press of proliferating their points of view.

On February 7, when the quarterly report on inflation was presented, the governor anticipated that after the decline of annual inflation below 7% in January, "several months of stagnation will follow." On Wednesday March 9, a day before the release of official figures, he said inflation would remain within the 7.2-7.5% interval until this summer.

Even base inflation (which excludes prices of tobacco, fuel, vegetables and fruit, eggs, as well as controlled prices), which the NBR says it can directly influence, went up from 4.3% to 4.6% in February.