Estimates of core inflation and inflation in the services sector for March 2025 4/25/2025 Tweet On the basis of the available, official statistics for consumer price indices in BH, and the associated weights, the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina (CBBH) has estimated (LINK) the annual core inflation for the first three months of 2025 at 4.21%. The annual growth of average consumer prices in the services sector is estimated at 4.73%. Strengthening of core inflation and inflation in the services sector is still not observed, despite the strong growth of the total consumer prices (Graph 1). In other words, in the first three months of 2025, headline inflation strengthened mainly due to the base effect and the effect of increasing food prices (7.1% at the annual level, for the first quarter). The effect of the food prices growth was so strong that it neutralised the annual decline of energy prices, which are also not included in core inflation, in the first quarter. At the time of publishing this announcement, we do not have available the data from the labour market for March, and we cannot estimate to which extent the minimum wage increase has resulted in growth of the prices of domestic food products. Also, we do not have available the information on the extent to which domestic products are represented in the category of food products, which are included in the average consumer price index in BH. Graph 1: Inflation in BH, period to period Source: BHAS, CBBH. The CBBH publishes these estimates for analytical purposes. We will discontinue the monthly publications of estimated core inflation and inflation in the services sector when the official statistics of core inflation in BH is published.
