According to several rankings, food prices in Hungary are one of the highest in the world
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According to last year’s World Bank statistics, Hungary had the 1st highest food price increase0. We examined Trading Economics data, based on which our country is currently in 12th place after Ghana, Haiti and Suriname, with an annual price increase of 47.1 percent. The Magyar Nemzeti Bank expects inflation in 2023 to be around 15-19.5 percent, and food prices to rise to nearly 30 percent.
In recent months, Hungary has been on the top list of several world rankings dealing with food inflation with its extremely fast rising prices. It was published at the end of December World Bank which ranked Hungary in 10th place, after Sri Lanka, Rwanda and Suriname.
The their analysis between August and November 2022, high inflation was measured in all low- and middle-income countries. Inflation is above 5 percent in 88.2 percent of low-income countries, 90.7 percent of lower-middle-income countries, and 93 percent of upper-middle-income countries, but in many other countries it reaches double digits.
During the summer, the Hungarian government repeatedly explained the ever-increasing communication with “war inflation” – which was replaced by the most inflation under sanctions – food price increases in our country are cheaper even than in Ukraine, which is currently at war.
THE Portfolio analysis draws attention to country-specific problems in our country, which is why we came to the top of the list, such as:
- the 20 percent increase in wages at the end of the year, which started the price-wage spiral,
- the drastic weakening of the forint exchange rate, which appeared in the price of imported products,
- the government’s special tax on the retail sector, which was included in the prices,
- losses suffered during the food price freeze, which was also included in the price of non-price freeze products.
We are far ahead of the EU countries
Due to the different sources and data collection time, there is some deviation between the individual rankings. Therefore, instead of the World Bank, we Commercial economics we examined its database in more detail, where Hungary currently ranks 12th.
According to the latest monthly data, compared to the prices of the previous year, food prices in Zimbabwe, Lebanon and Venezuela increased the most in 2022: 376, 171 and 158 total. The 47.1 percent price increase measured in Hungary is directly preceded by Ghana (59.7 percent), Haiti (53.1 percent) and Suriname (54.1 percent). In the countries of the European Union, a much higher price increase was measured in our country, on average 20 food items rose in price during the year.
MNB: A 30 percent increase in food prices is expected this year
It was issued by the Hungarian National Bank in December from its inflation report it turns out that after the annual inflation of around 14.6 percent in 2022, an annual increase in prices of 15-19.5 percent is predicted for 2023, i.e. it will definitely be higher than last year. Based on their estimate, high inflation of around or above 20 percent is expected in the first half of 2023, which will decrease in the second half of the year. According to the MNB, internal consumption is already decreasing, and will decrease further during the year due to bank interest rate hikes.
Food inflation is expected to be 29.7 percent in 2023, the reason for which will largely be the lingering effect of the 2022 price increase. According to them, we can say that Hungary is the most expensive in the region due to, among other things, the increase in energy prices and costs, wage increases in recent years, the devaluation of the exchange rate and the price cap.
We looked at how much our money is worth in the store compared to last year | atlatszo.hu
in the second-worst place, Lithuania, on the other hand, it is only half as large, at 33 percent. However, flour and cereals were not affected by such a drastic price increase: with 23 percent inflation, we are in the middle ground, at the bottom of the list are the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) with a 65-75 percent price increase.
Tamás Szémann – Luca Pete