Czech Producer Price Inflation Eases To 10.2%, Lowest In 18 Months

The Czech Republic’s industrial producer prices increased at the slowest pace in one-and-half years in March, figures from the Czech Statistical Office showed on Wednesday.

The industrial producer price index climbed 10.2 percent year-on-year in March, much slower than the 16.0 percent surge in February.

Economists had expected inflation to moderate to 11.3 percent.

Further, this was the weakest rate of increase since September 2021, when prices had grown 9.2 percent.

However, inflation has remained in double digits since October 2021.

The annual price growth in the electricity, gas, steam, and air conditioning segments slowed to 21.4 percent in March from 28.5 percent in the prior month.

Among the main industrial groupings, prices for non-durable consumer goods grew the most by 29.4 percent and those for energy goods by 12.3 percent.

Excluding energy, industrial producer price inflation eased to 9.5 percent in March from 12.4 percent in February.

On a monthly basis, producer prices dropped 1.0 percent in March. Economists had expected prices to fall slightly by 0.1 percent.