First quarter consumption driven by a strong recovery in purchasing power

The surprisingly strong 0.6% quarter-on-quarter GDP growth between January and March this year was driven by domestic demand. The relative strength of consumption was due to a 3.1% quarterly rebound in households’ real purchasing power, which benefited from the slowdown in inflation dynamics. The resilient labour market, with employment up and unemployment and inactivity down on the quarter, was apparently a decisive factor. Conditions were there for household saving ratios to reach 7.6% (from 5.3% in the fourth quarter of 2022), close to the pre-Covid 8% average, without penalising consumption.

Weakening industry points to softer growth in the second quarter

Data for the second quarter suggests that the very good performance of the first will be hard to replicate. Industry just managed to propel value-added in the first quarter, but this seems highly unlikely in the second after a very disappointing -1.9% industrial production reading in April.

Business confidence data for May and June and the relevant PMIs point to manufacturing softness through the rest of the second quarter and, possibly, into the third. For the time being, the decline in gas prices has failed to provide any relevant supply push for manufacturers, outweighed by deteriorating order books and stable stocks of finished goods. Services are also signalling some fatigue, but still look to be a decent growth driver, helped by a strong summer tourism season.

The fall in producer prices will bring goods disinflation down the line in CPI

The flipside of industrial weakness is a sharp deceleration in producer price dynamics. Courtesy of declining energy prices, PPI inflation entered negative territory in April, anticipating further decelerations down the line in the goods component of headline inflation.

Services inflation is proving relatively stickier, though, possibly reflecting in part a re-composition of consumption patterns out of interest rate-sensitive durable goods into services as part of the last bout of the re-opening effect. With administrative initiatives on energy bills still in place at least until the end of the summer, and with big energy base effects yet to play out, the CPI disinflation profile is still exposed to temporary jumps, but the direction seems unambiguously set.

Stickier services inflation to slow the decline in core inflation