DR inflation rate in May was -0.04%, 3.20% year-on-year | AlMomento.net

Santo Domingo, June 6 – The Central Bank reported this Thursday that the monthly variation in inflation last May was -0.04%, so that the annual rate measured from May 2023 to the same month of 2024 is slightly above 3.20%. from 3.03% at the end of April.

The regulator said in a statement that this result was due to the fact that the monthly inflation rate was -0.20% in May last year, so the lower comparison base showed a larger inter-annual change in May this year, although the monthly inflation will be negative at -0.04%.

Regarding underlying inflation over the past 12 months, the monetary organization said that at the end of May this year, the rate remained at 3.99%, still around the center of the central bank’s target of 4.0% +/- 1.0%.

DR among countries with lower regional inflation

The indicator allows us to extract clearer signals for the implementation of monetary policy, as it excludes some items that do not usually respond to liquidity conditions in the economy, such as food, fuel and price-regulated services with high price volatility, such as electricity or transport rates, in addition to alcoholic beverages and tobacco, the central bank added.

The Dominican Republic’s interannual inflation rate of 3.20% would rank among the lowest in Latin America (excluding dollarized economies (Panama, Ecuador and El Salvador)).

In the comparison between May and April last year, the food and non-alcoholic beverages group was the group with the highest incidence of inflation or the Consumer Price Index (CPI), with a change of -0.67%.

Falling food prices

The agency added that the reason for this action was the decline in prices of widely consumed food items such as fresh chicken, green and ripe bananas, green bananas, peppers, potatoes, cassava, lemons, pineapples, soybean oil, etc.

It is worth noting that price increases in categories such as avocados, rice, green dal, purified water, oranges and onions were not enough to offset the above declines.

The restaurant and hotel group saw an increase of 0.33%, mainly due to higher prices for meals prepared away from home, such as same-day meal services and side dish groceries, the information added.