Official inflation preview drops to 0.51% in May

Official inflation, according to the Extended National Consumer Price Index 15 (IPCA-15), was 0.51% in May this year. The rate is lower than those observed in April of this year (0.57%) and in May of last year (0.59%). The data was released this Thursday (25) by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).

With the result of May, the preview of the official inflation accumulates variation of 3.12% in the year. In 12 months, the accumulated rate dropped from 4.16% in April to 4.07% in May this year.

rise in prices

Seven of the nine expense groups surveyed by the IPCA-15 had high prices in May, with emphasis on health and personal care (1.49%) and food and beverages (0.94%).

The first group was influenced by price increases in pharmaceutical products (2.68%), still a reflection of the 5.60% readjustment in medicines as of March 31, and in personal hygiene items (1.38%). . One of the items that stood out in this category were perfumes (2.21%).

Foods had an increase in the pace of inflation, which had been just 0.04% in the April preview. The 0.94% price increase in the May preview was driven by products such as tomatoes (18.82%), potatoes (6.60%), long life milk (6.03%) and cheese (2. 42%).

The other groups with inflation were housing (0.43%), personal expenses (0.40%), clothing (0.35%), education (0.07%) and communication (0.02%).

Deflation

On the other hand, the retreat of the IPCA-15 from April to May was driven mainly by transport, which had registered inflation of 1.44% in the preview of the previous month, started to have deflation (fall in prices) of 0.04% in this month.

Airfares, down 17.26%, were the single item that weighed most heavily on the drop in inflation. The result of transport was also influenced by the prices of fuels such as diesel oil (-2.76%), vehicle gas (-0.44%) and gasoline (-0.21%).

Household items was another group of expenditures with deflation: -0.28%.