South Korea’s April inflation hits 13-year high


Data from Statistics Korea shows that the consumer price index (CPI) rose 4.8% in April from a year earlier, an acceleration from the 4.1% rise in the previous month and well faster than the 4.4% increase announced in a Reuters survey.

It even exceeded the highest forecast among the 11 economists in the survey and marked the fastest annual growth since October 2008, while still standing above the central bank’s 2% target for a 13th consecutive month.

“This is faster than expected and indicates that the timing will also be later than we thought when inflation starts to slow and stabilize,” said Stephen Lee, senior economist at Meritz Securities. “It won’t change the interest rate outlook, but it’s clearly a surprise for the markets.”

The index rose 0.7% on a monthly basis, against a 0.4% rise announced in the survey, after rising 0.7% in March.

Core inflation, which measures price growth excluding energy and food, picked up slightly to 3.1% year-on-year in April from 2.9% in March, and marked its highest level since May 2009.

Last month, South Korea’s central bank raised its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to 1.50%, a surprise move that signals an intensified fight against runaway inflation .

This is the Bank of Korea’s fourth base rate increase since it launched a policy tightening cycle in August last year, one of the premier central banks in high-income countries. To do.



Source link -88