There are prerequisites for a new wave of price increases in 2025
January 29 2025, 19:00
The year 2024 was not acute in terms of price increases. Moreover, in early 2024, the consumer price index (CPI) was negative. Of course, when analyzing inflation indicators, one should always keep in mind that we are talking about a comparison with the base of previous years. And since 2020, this figure was quite high. Simply put, prices rose sharply at once, after which, as early as 2024, prices slightly dropped and then began increasing again.
In January 2024, the CPI was -0.9%, and in December it was already 1.5%.
And since the indicator is cumulative, let’s look at its definite gap to understand what has risen in price last year and how much. For example, food inflation was -5.8% at the beginning of the year, and in December, the growth has already been positive (2%). This logic has been preserved for almost all product groups; only in the case of clothing and footwear product groups did the positive indicator turn negative by the end of the year; that is, prices became lower.
We have a much more concerning pattern with regard to essential services such as healthcare, transport, and education, where inflation has been continuous. For example, education’s 4.8% inflation became 7.8% at the end of the year. Fares increased as well: 3.3% as of December 2024.
The biggest concern is that the events taking place today (tax changes, higher public fares) create even broader conditions for further price increases, and therefore, the possibility of a new wave of price hikes in 2025 is high.