The Bank of Spain warns that they are already at all-time highs and will rise even more. Podemos is going to “continue insisting” with the intervention
The Bank of Spain alerted yesterday that food prices will continue to rise further in the coming months. That despite the fact that food inflation is at historical highs, around 15%, there are still upward pressures, as warned by the general director of Economy and Statistics of the organization, Ángel Gaviln. This affirmation overturns the thesis of the Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas, who defended in February that prices had reached a ceiling, and, furthermore, fuels the debate within the coalition on the measures to be adopted to reduce inflation.
The purple flank raises the pressure to intervene in the shopping cart. Sources from the formation insisted yesterday that they are still trying to convince the socialist wing: Let’s keep insisting. The Ministry of Consumer Affairs highlighted to this newspaper the words of Alberto Garzn, who admitted a few days ago that the measures already in place are insufficient and that there is room to freeze the prices of basic products. And from the secretary of United We Can, Ione Belarra maintained the following after learning about the results of Mercadona this month: Some are getting a lot of profit from an economic crisis that is making more and more people find it difficult to fill the fridge. The government has to limit speculation and intervene in the shopping cart.
However, UP’s proposals, which go from capping prices to subsidizing basic products, have not been well valued so far in the PSOE. socialists They advocate giving more time to the VAT drop applied to some foods since January. In Moncloa they maintain that the measures adopted still have a long way to go, although they do not rule out expanding them if the relaxation of production costs -which is already beginning to take place, as confirmed by the BdE- takes time to move to the last link in the chain and the Final prices continue to skyrocket.
Of course, in the socialist wing they remain firm in their rejection of interventionist measures such as the price cap and try to knock down the proposal of their partners focusing on business margins. President Pedro Sánchez has endorsed the union’s request to create a public observatory to monitor margins, and monitor the commitment made by companies in the sector to lower the price of the basic shopping basket and help contain inflation.
The rise in prices, in any case, is evident, very significant and will further reduce the purchasing power of families. It will impoverish them more, since they will need to allocate more resources to the purchase of food. The BdE estimates that average inflation for food will be more than 12%, when in December it estimated less than 8%. If this omen is fulfilled, the homes will face this year the most expensive basket in historyaccording to the records of the National Institute of Statistics (INE).
The agency also warned of the tightening of credit and mortgage conditions. All this explains the significant slowdown that the Spanish economy will suffer this year, a period in which growth will be 1.6%for 5.5% in 2022. The data, yes, represents a positive revision of three tenths.
Gaviln also expressed his concern about the financial crisis that has unleashed the fall of SVB in the United States, and of Credit Suisse in Europe. It seems likely that the uncertainty that has been generated exerts a certain adverse effect on the development of the activity economy in the coming quarters, anticipates the Bank of Spain, although it adds that it is not yet possible to specify the magnitude and persistence of the tensions.
and what s giving a break to homes is the energy, which this year will even contribute negatively to inflation as a result of the base effect and also due to the downward trend of energy prices themselves. This will allow headline inflation to moderate as well, with an expected figure of 3.7%.
According to the criteria of
Know more