Food, heating, leisure: consumers are tightening their belts.
Plunged into the crisis, the Belgians took out their calculators. After the spike in energy prices that began in 2021, it is the war in Ukraine that is pushing inflation to historic highs. And this has a strong impact on purchasing power.
“According to our survey, 58% of Belgians felt a price increase between 1% and 10% for the goods and services they buy regularly. For 42% of Belgians, the perceived price increase is more than 10%. Overall, these data suggest that, on average, Belgians’ feelings regarding inflation are not fundamentally different from official inflation statistics, which indicate Belgian inflation at 8.31% in March 2022 (9.3% for the harmonized index), even if certain segments of the population face higher inflation”says Charlotte de Montpellier, economist at ING.