Serbian financial, corporate sectors see year-ahead inflation easing - c-bank

In May, the year-ahead expectations of the corporate sector remained unchanged for a third consecutive month at 5.0%, NBS said in a statement on Friday, citing the results of a Ninamedia survey.

"The survey results show that both financial and corporate sectors expect inflationary pressures to ease further in the period ahead," NBS noted.

In January, the year-ahead inflation expectations of Serbia's financial sector entered the NBS' target band for the first time in almost two years.

In addition, the financial and corporate sectors' two- and three-year ahead inflation expectations are mostly lower than their short-term expectations, as per the statement.

In May, the financial sector inflation expectations for two years ahead fell to 3.2% from April's 3.3%, and stayed unchanged at 3.0% for three years ahead. The medium-term corporate expectations for two years ahead dropped to 4.5% in May, from April's 5.0%, returning within the NBS target band after more than two years. For three years ahead, the expectations of the corporate sector, however, rose to 4.0% in May from 3.8% in April.

Earlier in June, Serbia's statistics office reported that annual consumer price inflation slowed down to 4.5% in May, from 5% in April, in line with the NBS expectations that annual inflation would return to the 1.5-4.5% targeted band in May, a month earlier than previously expected. Inflation should approach the target midpoint by end-2024 and hover around that level in the medium term, the central bank has said.