Weekly Market Watch

Annual inflation was 2.2% in Jun-24 
In Jun-24, annual inflation reached 2.2%, up from the 2.0% print in previous month. This increase was primarily driven by a 2.8% y/y rise in domestic inflation (+2.5% y/y in May-24), followed by a 3.3% y/y increase in imported inflation (+3.8% y/y in May-24). Notably, core inflation, excluding volatile food, energy and tobacco prices, slowed to 1.4% y/y in Jun-24 from 1.7% y/y recorded in previous month. 
By categories, annual inflation in Jun-24 was mostly driven by price changes in transport (+11.0% y/y, +1.31ppts), food and non-alcoholic beverages (+1.9% y/y, +0.63ppts), hotels & restaurants (+7.5% y/y, +0.25ppts), alcoholic beverages & tobacco (+3.4% y/y, +0.23ppts) and education (+3.8% y/y, +0.17ppts) categories. 

International reserves at US$ 4.6bn in Jun-24 
Gross international reserves decreased by 9.6% y/y to US$ 4.6bn in Jun-24, according to NBG. On a monthly basis, the reserves were down by 0.4% (-US$ 19.0mn). Notably, there was one FX auction in June, where NBG sold US$ 60.0mn. Other changes in reserves were attributed to the government and/or banking sector FX operations, and likely also to NBG’s FX trading via BMatch platform (information will be available on 25 July).