The Broad National Consumer Price Index (IPCA), which measures official inflation in the country, registered a rate of 0.38% in April this year. The indicator was above that observed in the previous month (0.16%), but below that recorded in April of last year (0.61%).
According to data released this Friday (10) by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), the IPCA accumulates an inflation rate of 1.8% for the year. In 12 months, the accumulated rate is 3.69%, below the 3.93% accumulated until March and within the target limit defined by the National Monetary Council (CMN) for this year: between 1.5% and 4.5 %.
The main factors responsible for April’s inflation were food and spending on health and personal care. The food and beverage expense group recorded a 0.7% increase in prices in the month, driven by items such as papaya (22.76%), onion (15.63%), tomato (14.09%) and ground coffee ( 3.08%).
Health and personal care, a group that saw a price increase of 1.16%, the most notable items were pharmaceutical products (with an increase of 2.84%), impacted by the authorization of an adjustment of up to 4.5% in the prices of medicines from March 31st.
Among the medicines with the biggest price increases are antidiabetics (4.19%), anti-infectives and antibiotics (3.49%) and hypotensive and hypocholesterolemic drugs (3.34%).
On the other hand, housing and housing items experienced deflation (price drop) in the month, of 0.26% and 0.01%, respectively.
The other expense groups had the following inflation rates: clothing (0.55%), communication (0.48%), transport (0.14%), personal expenses (0.10%) and education (0.05 %).
