(Bloomberg) -- Hungarian inflation quickened less than expected in October, though a weak currency is set to limit the central bank’s room to cut interest rates further.
Consumer prices rose an annual 3.2% after slowing to policymakers’ 3% target in September, the Budapest-based statistics office said in a statement on Tuesday. That was less than the 3.5% median estimate in a Bloomberg survey. Month-on-month, prices rose 0.1%.
While a steady acceleration in price-growth was in line with central bank projections, a potentially slower pace may raise hopes that inflation won’t rebound by as much as policymakers have forecast. The National Bank of Hungary’s latest projection expects inflation to breach 4% by year-end as the base effects of last year’s price spike fade.
Inflation aside, the forint is the more immediate concern of rate-setters. The weak exchange rate already forced policymakers to abandon monetary-easing plans, even with the economy mired in a recession. Some analysts have even started speculating about potential monetary tightening in case the forint slides further from a close to two-year low against the euro.
While the inflation data was “favorable,” policymakers “hardly have to consider monetary easing given the forint’s woes,” said ING Bank Hungary economist Peter Virovacz. “The big question is whether the central bank starts to communicate in November about the possibility of rate hikes, if conditions demand it.”
The forint plunged 3.2% against the euro since the start of October, the second-worst performance among 23 emerging-market currencies after the Chilean peso.
The drop, which has been more pronounced since Donald Trump’s victory in last week’s US presidential elections, already prompted Hungary’s central bank last month to flag a “sustained pause” after a brief attempt at resuming monetary easing. Hungary’s key rate is currently 6.5%, tied with Romania’s for the highest in the European Union.
Policymakers have repeatedly warned that a weak forint has a bigger negative impact on inflation than in the past. Its feeding into price increases may now be the main risk going forward, more so than services inflation, Erste Bank economist Orsolya Nyeste said in a research note.
Services inflation, which Deputy Governor Barnabas Virag has said was being closely scrutinized by the central bank, slowed to an annual 7.2% in October and unexpectedly fell from September after a 6.8% monthly drop in telecommunications costs.
“The inflation figure came as a huge positive surprise,” Nyeste said. “The rapid forint weakening, elevated volatility and deteriorating risk sentiment” for emerging-market assets however are “likely to keep the central bank cautious.”
--With assistance from Andras Gergely.
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