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Tuesday 26 May 2020

Inflation falls below zero in Canada for first time since 2009



Canadian inflation was negative for the first time since the 2009 recession after the coronavirus blockade that has clearly slowed down the world economy.

As is well known, inflation is an economic process caused by the imbalance between production and demand; It causes a continued rise in the prices of most products and services, and a loss of the value of money to be able to purchase or use them.

That said, it is understood that consumer prices fell 0.2 percent in April from the same month the year before, according to a Statistics Canada report from Ottawa. Likewise, that’s less than an annual rate of 0.9 percent in March and 2.2 percent in February.


Coronavirus impact

Likewise, it is necessary to indicate that said report has added inflation to the list of economic indicators that show a historical impact caused by the coronavirus pandemic. And it is that the collapse of gasoline prices has reduced inflation in the last two months, but weak demand should keep inflation at extremely low levels for a long period and could even raise concerns about deflation. In this way, it has been indicated that this could maintain pressure from the Bank of Canada to facilitate accommodation efforts in the short term.

In addition, core inflation readings, which take into account volatile elements such as energy prices and are often considered a better measure of underlying price pressure, decreased to 1.8 percent from 1, 83 percent in the previous month, the lowest since January 2019.

Source: Bloomberg News — Theophilos Argitis and Shelly Hagan | National Post

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