Will prices continue to rise like today? The National Bank sent its forecasts, in particular mentioning inflation. First observation: we are at the heart of the price crisis. Simon François was on the 1 p.m. news to enlighten us on this subject.
Olivier Schoonejans : The outlook for the coming months is relatively positive…
Simon Francois : Indeed, two good news and one not so good: First good news, inflation should soon slow down, according to the predictions of the National Bank. We have reached the peak of inflation, that does not mean that prices will fall tomorrow, they will continue to rise, but less strongly, less quickly than today.
Second good news, the automatic indexation of wages that we know in Belgium will soon play its role as a safety net by 2023, this mechanism will have compensated for the rise in prices for households on average in Belgium. The purchasing power of Belgians should recover in the coming months.
Companies will see their labor costs increase
A problem: if wages adapt to the rise in prices, if they increase, in return, they will have to end up having to be paid and this risks being a problem for the country’s companies, they will end up with salary costs, salaries to be paid which will be much higher in Belgium than in neighboring countries such as France, Germany or the Netherlands.
Is it serious ? “It is largely companies that will pay the shock. The general impoverishment will be much more widely borne by companies in Belgium than in neighboring countries“, explains the governor of the National Bank of Belgium. “Is it serious ? It is difficult to say because indeed, there is a fairly strong deterioration in the competitiveness of companies, wage costs are increasing faster than in neighboring countries, but at the same time the margins of companies were historically high“.
