IPCA-15
Inflation preview hits 0.54%, highest figure since March 2015
March 26, 2019 09h00 AM | Last Updated: March 26, 2019 02h03 PM
The inflation preview accelerated to 0.54% in March, driven by the rise of prices of food products and transportation, by 1.28% and 0.59%, respectively. That is the biggest change for a month of March since 2015 (1.24%).
These data come from the Extended Consumer Price Index 15 (IPCA-15), released today by the IBGE. As a result, the cumulative IPCA-15 of Q1 (IPCA-E) was 1.18% and the cumulative index in 12 months changed from 3.73%, in February, to 4.18%, in March.
Pinto beans, which rose 41.44% between February 13 to March 15, 2019, accounted for the main individual impact on the inflation preview (0.09 percentage points). Other important items in the consumption basket also recorded increases, for example: tomato (16.73%), fruits (2.73%), and long-life milk (2.35%).
In the group Transportation, the two highlights were airfares, which rose 7.54% and from ethanol, which rose 2.64%. After three months of decrease, gasoline recorded a slight increase of 0.28%. Also in the group Transportation, a highlight was the result of 0.73% of urban buses, whose fares rose in Porto Alegre, Recife, Curitiba, Rio de Janeiro and Fortaleza.
The inflation preview from February to March points to deflation in household articles (-0.23%) and communication (-0,19%) . In the latter, the negative change in the month was due to the fall of prices of telephone appliances (-1.86%) and to the item landline telephone (-0.50%), due to the average reduction by 7.50% in the fares of mobile telephone against the landline type.
The IPCA-15 shows all the 11 areas surveyed recorded increases, being the highest index that of Fortaleza (0,92%), due to the rise of gasoline prices (5.92%). The metropolitan area of Salvador accounted for the lowest figure (0,29%).
