Release date 12 December 2021
Pressures in supply chains continue to affect the rise in producer prices
For the 3rd consecutive week, the number of confirmed cases with COVID-19 in Slovenia is declining, while the number of hospital admissions is declining for the 2nd week (the exception was Thursday, December 9). There is also a declining trend in the number of people admitted to intensive care, so we expect a drop in the number of deaths soon. The current wave of infections is subsiding.
Year-on-year growth in exports of goods expectedly slowed down in October (+14.2%), reducing growth in the first ten months to 18.9%. Monthly exports (EUR 3.6 billion) were actually EUR 100 million higher than our expectations (EUR 3.5 billion). Growth in goods imports intensified (+35.7% year on year, +30.4% in the first ten months), mainly as a result of rising raw material and energy prices and higher imports of consumer and investment goods. The value of imports from non-EU countries increased by almost 70% compared to the same month last year (45% higher in the first ten months). At the same time, the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia draws attention to the high growth of processing operations, which means an increase in imports and exports of pharmaceutical products that are not manufactured in Slovenia but inflate the value of imports and exports. Without this effect, the growth of imports and exports would be lower by 2 percentage points. Data from the Bank of Slovenia (balance of payments) exclude processing operations, so we are looking forward to October data which will be published soon.
More economic topics are below in the attachment.
Global sector PMI in November remained relatively high. 19 out of 21 sectors recorded business growth. Activity in finance (insurance companies, other financial institutions, excluding banks), transportation, industrial services and software development, banks and the production of technological equipment strengthened the most. The decline was present in the metals and minerals sector and in the automotive and auto parts industries, but the decline in the latter was relatively small. Price pressures continued to be high globally. They were particularly high for input prices in technological equipment, building materials, the chemical industry and the paper industry.
ECB Consumer Expectations Survey: an overview and first evaluation; Bankowska et al.; ECB; Occasional Paper Series No 287; 8 December 2021, 137 pages; free download at: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/scpops/ecb.op287~ea7eebc23f.en.pdf?27bb674c6dcc5ae7f7a2536c4657aa93
Comment/Abstract: The Consumer Expectations Survey (CES) is an important new tool for analysing euro area household economic behaviour and expectations. This new survey covers a range of important topical areas including consumption and income, inflation and gross domestic product (GDP) growth, the labour market, housing market activity and house prices, and consumer finance and credit access.
Exports of services, Slovenia, October 2021 (Statistical Office of RS); EUR 810 m
Comment: Exports of services in September 2021 was already above September 2019 numbers (by 2.6%), which was largely due to rise in exports of non-tourism types of exports. October data is seasonally stronger than September’s and we expects total exports to be higher by 6.6% compared to October 2019.
“Future forecasting is all about testing strategies - it's like a wind tunnel.” (Jamais Cascio)