Food prices contain inflation in the beginning of the school year
March 09, 2018 09h00 AM | Last Updated: March 12, 2018 12h22 PM
The inflation in February was 0.32%, close to January's (0.29%), despite a rise of 3.89% in the education sector. "The drops in the group of food and beverages (-0.33%) had enough impact to contain this rate", explains Fernando Gonçalves, manager of the Extended Consumer Price Index. "Important food items, such as meat and fruit, and others that increased in January, such as tomatoes, potatoes and carrots, fell in February," says Fernando.
The increase in regular course fees is the main inflation factor in February. This year, the high was followed by the transportation sector, mostly due to urban buses in Goiânia (up 6.4%) and gasoline, which increased by 8.6% in Salvador.
The IPCA data, released today by the IBGE, show that February's inflation was the lowest for the month since the year 2000, when it reached 0.13%. The cumulative inflation in the year reached 0.61%, slightly below the 0.71% registered in the first two months of 2017 and the lowest percentage for the period since the implementation of the Plano Real in 1994.
In the last twelve months, the index accumulated 2.84%. In February 2017, the rate reached 0.33%. For the calculation of the index of the month, the prices collected in the period from January 30 to March 1, 2018 (reference) were compared with the prices in effect from December 29, 2017 to January 29, 2018 (base).
