Alfa-Bank estimates it at 9.3%. inflation in 2022 against a forecast of 9.9% in the budget for 2023. Its analysts reportedly predict that in 2023 it will fall to 4.5-5%, against a budget forecast of 5%.

In particular, in the first half of the year, according to their estimates, it will shift to 5% -6%, and then decrease to 4.5% -5%. In yesterday’s weekly bulletin of economic events of the bank, it is noted that the peak of inflation has been passed and its decline has gradually begun. However, it is pointed out that the degree of its normalization will depend on the degree to which the increase in prices is passed on to other categories of goods and services through an increase in production costs, as well as wages.

In a bulletin prepared by the Bank’s Economic Research Department (Chief Economist Panagiotis Kapopoulos), the decline in inflation over the last three months of 2022 is attributed to underlying results, as well as lower energy prices. He notes that over the past 5 months, natural gas prices have fallen by 80%, and oil – by 12%.

However, core inflation, excluding raw food and energy, continued to rise as higher energy costs were reflected in the prices of other goods and services. Thus, core inflation in November 2022 amounted to 8.3% from 7.2% in August, and in December it slightly decreased to 7.7%.

Over the past five months, natural gas prices have fallen by 80% and oil by 12%.

The slowdown in inflation in recent months, the bulletin notes, is more noticeable when comparing price levels in September and December 2022. During this period, the index fell by 2.2%.

This is mainly due to a 14% decline in the housing sub-index and secondarily to declines in other categories such as transport (-1.4%) and hotels and catering (-5.8%). On the contrary, the most significant growth during the last quarter was recorded in the categories of clothing and footwear (3.5%), food and non-alcoholic beverages (2.6%) and durable goods (2.5%).

According to the bank’s analysts, since October, the contribution of energy prices to the growth of the unified consumer price index (from 5 percentage points in September to 0.5 percentage points in December) has been decreasing. The contribution of unprocessed foods has been stable, while the contribution of processed foods and manufactured goods has increased.