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Colombia: Colombia Inflation climbs in December

2016/01/17

In December, consumer prices rose 0.62% over the previous month, which came in slightly above the 0.60% price increase registered in November. December’s result mainly reflected an increase in prices of diverse goods, which more than offset a softer increase in prices for education.

Inflation increased from November’s 6.4% to 6.8% in December, thus reaching its highest level since January 2009. As a result, inflation moved further above the Central Bank’s tolerance margin of plus/minus 1.0 percentage point around its 3.0% target.

The core consumer price index, which excludes volatile items such as fresh food and fuels, rose in December by 0.64% month-on-month (November: +0.53% month-on-month). Finally, core inflation remained stable at November’s 5.2% in December.
Panelists participating in the LatinFocus Consensus Forecast expect that inflation will close 2016 at 5.0%, which is up 0.1 percentage points from last month’s forecast. For 2017, the panel expects inflation to end the year at 3.6%.

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