Daily Insight-Inflation in April; Today\'s government bond auction preview

Late Friday, the State Statistics Committee published its monthly statistics on prices (consumer price (CPI) and producer price (PPI) indices) for April. In particular, these showed that headline CPI rose 1.3% versus the previous month, while PPI jumped by 3.4% in month-on-month terms (see charts below).

As for consumer prices, food and transport, as well as home utilities, were the three groups that boosted the general level of consumer prices last month. In particular, the food component, the largest one, accounting for one-half of the total index of the CPI basket, rose by 1.5% MoM, driven mainly by fruits (4.0% MoM), vegetables (6.8% MoM), and sugar (4.0% MoM). Bread and flour products added 2.2% MoM for the month. Transport services as a component of the CPI index rose by 3.3% MoM, where fuel and transport rose by 4.9% and 2.9%, respectively, over the previous month. In utilities, which rose by 1.7% MoM, the electric power price added 15.1% versus the previous month, while other utilities like natural gas, water supply, sewage, etc, changed only marginally (the natural gas price, in fact, has been stable this year in all of the past four months).