MEXICO CITY (AP) — Inflation in Mexico picked up again in February after two months of decline, reaching an annualized rate of 7.28 percent, driven by higher prices for several staple items in the Mexican diet, including lemons, tortillas, and avocados.
The National Consumer Price Index showed in February a 0.83% rise compared with the previous month, the state-run INEGI said on Wednesday. In January, annual inflation had stood at 7.07%.
Moreover, the core inflation—considered central to the economy because it excludes the goods and services with the greatest volatility—reached an annualized rate of 6.59% in February, marking 15 straight months of increases and leading analysts to expect that inflationary pressures will persist through much of 2022 and could worsen due to price spikes in certain commodities stemming from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and tighter supplies of some goods.
In February, prices rose for items such as lemons, avocados, chicken, beef, corn tortillas, domestic gas, low-octane gasoline, lunch counters, and automobiles, INEGI indicated.
With inflation expected to quicken, the Bank of Mexico agreed in February to another hike in the interbank rate, raising it to 6%.
The second-largest economy in Latin America is contending with inflationary pressures amid a stagnating productive apparatus. After declines in the third and fourth quarters of 2021, the economy ended the year with a 5% expansion.
The president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has dismissed the notion that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine could disrupt fuel supplies and trigger price increases and argued that Mexico “has other energies to produce electricity, we have bunker fuel, coal in a worst-case scenario.”
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