Electricity ignites inflation forecast of November
November 23, 2017 09h00 AM | Last Updated: November 23, 2017 11h18 AM
The increase in residential electricity bills was one of the factors that contributed the most to the 0.32% increase in the inflation forecast, the National Extended Consumer Price Index (IPCA-15), published in November by IBGE . The cumulative index in 2017 is 2.58%, while the index of the last 12 months was 2.77%.
Electricity was the item that had the highest individual impact (0.16 pp) on the formation of November's index. This is due to the value of the red flag 2 adopted on November 1st went from R$3.50 to R$5 for each 100kwh consumed.
The change in the cost of residential electricity in Brazil was 4.42% in the period, while the group of which it is part, Housing, registered a rise of 1.33%. Regionally, the index for the electricity bill in November was between the 1.12% recorded in the metropolitan region of Fortaleza and the 21.21% in Goiânia.
Also in the Housing group, bottled gas had a 3.30% change, with the highest increase in the Metropolitan Area of Recife, with 9.44%. The inflation of the item was boosted by the increase authorized by Petrobras in the price of 13kg-bottled-gas in its refineries as on November 5, making the product 4.5% more expensive, on average.
In the regional indexes, Goiânia had the highest price increase (1.62%), driven by the increase in electricity. The only two falls were in Salvador (-0.03%) and Fortaleza (-0.05%), where, in addition to fruits (-6.91%), gasoline (-1.33%) stood out.
The IPCA-15 is an indicator, calculated by IBGE, which measures inflation between the second half of a month and the first fortnight of the reference month. It encompasses families with income from one to 40 minimum wages and covers the metropolitan areas of Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte, Recife, São Paulo, Belém, Fortaleza, Salvador and Curitiba, as well as Brasília and Goiânia.
Text in Portuguese: Rodrigo Paradella
Art and photography: Helga Szpiz
