Financial sector moderately pessimistic, citizens still fearing inflation

According to the March Ninamedia survey, one-year ahead inflation expectations of the financial sector went slightly up, from 3.9% in February to 4.0%, staying however within the NBS target tolerance band, announced the National Bank of Serbia (NBS). According to the latest Bloomberg survey, one-year ahead expectations inched up from 3.5% in March to 3.6% in April.

The composite measure of March expectations, calculated by combining the responses of financial institutions that participate in the Bloomberg and Ninamedia surveys, came at 3.65%, i.e. close to the average value in the past several months.

Two-year ahead expectations of the financial sector edged up from 3.5% in February to 3.6% in March, while those for three years ahead stayed unchanged at 3.5%.

One-year ahead corporate inflation expectations stayed at 5.0% according to Ninamedia, which is also their average value for the past year. Medium-term inflation expectations of the corporate sector measured 4.5% for both two and three years ahead, staying within the 4.0–5.0% range recorded in the past year.

According to the results of the Ninamedia survey, one-year ahead quantitative inflation expectations of households stayed unchanged in the March survey for all the three periods observed. Their short-term expectations have stood at 15.0% since August, while their medium-term expectations equaled 10.0% in March.

Continuously higher perceived than expected inflation index implies that households anticipate lower inflation in the coming twelve months than in the previous year.

Ninamedia Kliping d.o.o. Novi Sad

Narodna banka Srbije Beograd

Ninamedia

National Bank of Serbia

Bloomberg

inflation expectations

inflation