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Oil prices may push inflation in Lithuania in 2018

BC, Vilnius, 09.05.2018.Print version
Inflation has slowed down in Lithuania lately but rising oil prices may push it up again, Laura Galdikiene, an economist from Swedbank, says, cites LETA/BNS.

"We estimate the average annual inflation to reach 3% this year and it will be considerably lower than last year. But rising oil prices might change the situation. Although April's monthly inflation did not reflect that yet, but we already saw in April that oil prices, calculated in euros, were around 30% higher than last year," Galdikiene told BNS Lithuania.


Lithuanian consumers might soon feel the effect of higher oil prices, she says.


"Our consumers are likely to feel higher oil prices through transport services and fuel prices," Galdikiene said.


Bloomberg figures show Brent oil cost around 75 US dollar on Wednesday, compared to around 55 dollar last year.


Monthly inflation stood at 0.6% in Lithuania in April, rising for a second month in a row, Statistics Lithuania said on Wednesday. Annual inflation in April was 2.3%, and average annual inflation stood at 3.8%, compared to 2.7 and 3.9% in March respectively.


"We see a drop in annual inflation. It's not surprising as we see slower growth in services prices. Wages are growing more slowly as well. Prices of goods also slowed down and their growth was one of the slowest in recent years," the Swedbank expert said.


Rising vegetable, clothing and footwear and holiday prices and lower prices of heating energy, other services, household maintenance products and materials and wine and wine products had the largest effect on the general price level in April. Prices of goods rose 0.7% on a month and prices of services inched up 0.5%. Annual increases were 1.5 and 4.7% respectively.






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