In February, the cost of private elementary and secondary education rose above 4% and the university cost rose about 0.35%. Meanwhile, fuels fell by 4.45%. Just like these, 53% of the 315 goods and services that make up the consumer basket increased in price, 39% decreased in price and 8% did not change.
As a result, the first two months of 2019 ended with cumulative inflation of 0.13%, the National Institute of Statistics and Census reported Thursday, based on the variation in the Consumer Price Index.
The total change in prices during last February was 0.08%, the lowest of the last three years.
For the second month of the year, the groups with the greatest contribution to the CPI variation were: Food and non-alcoholic beverages and Education.
The goods and services that showed the greatest positive effect were: the cost of the automobile, elementary education and secondary education. On the other hand, gasoline, papaya and tomato were among the items with the greatest negative effect.
The inter-annual variation to February was 1.54%, below the target range of the Central Bank (between 2% and 4%)
In February of the last ten years, the highest year-on-year variation occurred in 2013 with 6.52%, while 2016 had the only negative interannual variation.
According to data from the Central Bank, in February, 12-month inflation expectations were at 3.5%, which meant a downward correction compared to the results of the previous months, in order: 3.6% in January 2019, 3.7% in December and 4.2% in November 2018.