The Extended National Consumer Price Index 15 - IPCA-15 changed 0.35% in December, slightly above the rate of 0.32% of November. As a result, the IPCA-E, which is the cumulative IPCA-15, closed 2017 at 2.94%, the lowest cumulative result since 1998, when it registered 1.66%. In December 2016, the rate had been 0.19%. The complete data of the IPCA-15 can be accessed here.

According to the table below, three out of nine groups of products and services surveyed dropped: Household articles (-0.27%), Communication (-0.26%) and Food and Beverages (-0.02%).

The 0.02% drop in Food and Beverages was less intense than that registered in the previous six months:

 A number of products influenced the result, like carioca beans (-5.02%),  potatoes (-3.75%), tomatoes (-2.88%), fruit (-1.40%) and processed meat (-1.29%).

Even dropping as a group, some food increased their prices, particularly soybean oil (1.92%) and meat (0.41%).

In Household articles (-0.27%), the drop was influenced by items: TV, sound and computers (-1.61%) and household appliances (-0.51%).

Besides the drop in the item telephone (-0.26%) in the group of Communication (-2.24%), some carriers realigned the landline telephone fare (-0.76%) on November 8.

On the rise side, electricity (0.77%), from the group of Housing (0.43%), decelerated in relation to November (4.42%). This was due to the red tariff flag level 1 charged as of December 1st, which cost an additional R$0.03 per kilowatt-hour consumed, replacing the red tariff flag level 2, which implied an additional cost of R$0.05 per kilowatt-hour consumed. An average adjustment of 15.70% in the fare took place in Goiânia (5.86%) as of October 22. An average adjustment of 6.84% also took place on the same date in Brasília (0.07%) and one of the carriers surveyed in the metropolitan area of São Paulo (1.06%) adjusted its fare by 22.59% on October 23.

Still in the group of Housing, bottled gas changed 0.80%. On December 5, Petrobras authorized an average adjustment of 8.90% in the price of the 13-kg cylinders in the refineries. Having changed 0.48%, piped gas reflected the 1.54% adjustment that took place in Rio de Janeiro (0.93%) on November 1st.

Having changed 0.92%, water and sewage fees reflected the 7.89% adjustment in the fare in São Paulo (3.55%) as of November 10.

The highest group change was recorded in Transportation (1.16%), pressed by gasoline (2.75%), which led the ranking of the major individual impacts (0.11 p.p.). The items airfare (22.34%) and ethanol (4.34%) also pressed it. It should be highlighted that the item urban bus (-1.04%) exerted the biggest negative impact on the month´s index (-0.03 p.p.), as a result of the reduction in the fare in Rio de Janeiro (-5.28%) as of November 15.

Other rising highlights were: health plan (1.06%), domestic workers (0.52%) and men’s wearing apparel (0.99%).

Concerning the regional indexes, the highest one was registered in Brasília (0.83%), where gasoline (4.91%) and airfare (16.50%) stood out by impacting 0.28 p.p. and 0.26 p.p., respectively, on the month´s index. The lowest figure was recorded in Salvador    (-0.09%), influenced by meals away from home (-2.10%) and fruit (-5.17%).

See below the table of monthly results by area surveyed.

In order to estimate the IPCA-15, the prices collected from November 14 to December 13 (reference) were compared with the prices in force from October 12 to November 13 (base). The indicator refers to families with monthly income of 1 to 40 minimum wages and it encompasses the metropolitan areas of Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte, Recife, São Paulo, Belém, Fortaleza, Salvador, Curitiba, as well as Brasília and Goiânia. The methodology is the same as the one used for the IPCA; the difference lies in the period of price collection and in the geographic coverage.