It's farewell to declines in the NBR interest rate until the endof the year; the Romanian currency will continue to strengthenagainst the euro because the central bank will try to temper pricesof import goods. These are the main effects anticipated by analystsafter the negative surprise of February inflation, when the annualrate abruptly leapt from 6.9% to 7.6%.
Although visible both on the cash receipts issued in supermarketsand on marketplace stands, the 1.8% month-on-month price increasecalculated by the Statistics Institute came as a big surprise bothfor analysts and the NBR. The price of potatoes went up by morethan 10% in February, flour became 2% more expensive, the price ofvegetable oil rose 2.7%, that of bread went up 2.3%, while theprice of milk rose 2.4%.
According to ZF calculations based on prices of products listed onhypermarket shelves, flour, sugar, vegetable oil and potatoesbecame over 30% more expensive between July 2010 and February2011.
Food producers warned in the autumn of last year that a wave ofprice hikes was coming, largely prompted by the increase in theprice of raw materials, but NBR governor Mugur Is`rescu called them"blabbermouths" and accused the press of proliferating their pointsof view.
On February 7, when the quarterly report on inflation waspresented, the governor anticipated that after the decline ofannual inflation below 7% in January, "several months of stagnationwill follow." On Wednesday March 9, a day before the release ofofficial figures, he said inflation would remain within the7.2-7.5% interval until this summer.
Even base inflation (which excludes prices of tobacco, fuel,vegetables and fruit, eggs, as well as controlled prices), whichthe NBR says it can directly influence, went up from 4.3% to 4.6%in February.
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