The indicator for core inflation, excluding indirect tax effects, was 1.4% in September, up from 1.2% in the previous month. The indicator for demand-sensitive inflation, which excludes processed foods from core inflation, was 1.5%, rising from 1.4%, while the indicator for sticky price inflation, which includes items for which retail prices vary, on average, no more than 15% a month, was 1.9%, also up from 1.8% in the previous month.

The September rise in inflation was mainly due to the rising fuel price index, pushed up by base effects, while the MNBʼs “measures of underlying inflation developments (annual inflation rates of demand-sensitive and sticky-price products and services) were broadly unchanged compared with the previous month,” the central bank said in its monthly assessment.

“The levels of the measures continue to indicate a moderate inflation environment,” the MNB said. “The contribution of demand-sensitive products to inflation was unchanged, while movements in the more volatile items with greater sensitivity to cost changes, i.e. food and energy, continued to have a downward effect on prices,” it added.

Householdsʼ inflation expectations “were largely unchanged and remained at moderate levels, in line with low underlying inflation developments,” the MNB said.

Breaking a declining trend experienced in the previous months, Hungary’s Consumer Price Index (CPI), the core inflation indicator, grew by 0.6% on average in September compared to the same month a year earlier, the Central Statistical Office (KSH) announced today in a first reading of data. In the January-September period, consumer prices rose by 0.1% on average compared to the first nine months of 2015.