August 13 (SeeNews) - Austria's Erste banking group expects Serbia's average consumer prices to rise by 2% in 2019 despite the slowdown in the summer months of the year, it said.
Inflation is moving around the lower part of the 1.5%-4.5% target band set by Serbia's central bank during the summer months, but it will start to pick up gradually later this year as wage growth is supporting demand, Erste said on Monday in a comment on official data on Serbia's consumer price inflation in July.
"Uncertainties are still mostly related to the external environment and the associated developments in the commodity markets," Erste said.
Serbia's average consumer prices rose by 1.6% year-on-year in July, after growing by 1.5% in June, the country's statistical office said on Monday. On a monthly comparison basis, Serbia's consumer price index (CPI) fell by 0.2% in July, after decreasing by 0.3% in June.
Serbia's average annual consumer price inflation slowed to 2.0% last year from 3.0% in 2017.