There are increasing signs of easing inflationary pressures.

After the commercial producer prices, the producer prices for agricultural products in Germany have recently not risen quite as much.

In October, the year-on-year increase was 37.9 percent, compared to 40.3 percent in September.

The Federal Statistical Office announced this on Monday.

Christian Siedenbiedel

Editor in Business.

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The increase in commercial producer prices fell from 45.8 to 34.5 percent.

In the case of import prices, there was a decline in the increase from 29.8 to 23.5 percent.

All of these developments are also relevant because, with a slight delay, they can also have an impact on consumer prices – and thus on inflation.

It could get even more expensive in January

"This is another clear sign that the price pressure is easing overall," says Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Bankhaus Berenberg.

The inflation rate fell slightly in Germany and the euro zone in November, to 10.0 percent.

For December, Commerzbank now expects another small decline to 9.7 percent in Germany and 9.9 percent in the euro area.

In January, the rate could be a little higher again "with a bit of bad luck" because of the high energy bills that many consumers receive, says Schmieding: "But after that, the upward trend in prices will drop noticeably." Stefan Schneider, Germany's chief economist at Deutsche Bank , believes that the October inflation rate in the euro zone should have already peaked – in Germany the value could be reached or even exceeded at the beginning of next year.

However, such “turning point forecasts” should always be treated with caution.

No wonder that the question now arises as to how long the central banks will continue with their rate hikes.

This week is the last major round of interest rate decisions for this year.

Analysts speak of a "week of the central banks": On Wednesday, the US Federal Reserve (Fed) decides on interest rates, on Thursday the European Central Bank (ECB), the Bank of England (BoE) and the Swiss National Bank (SNB).

Surprises are of course possible, but at least Frederik Ducrozet, economist at Bank Pictet, expects that all four central banks will raise interest rates in unison – by 0.5 percentage points.

In any case, in a survey by the Reuters news agency, 51 out of 60 economists forecast a rate hike of this magnitude for the ECB.

At some point in the new year, central banks will pause

It will be exciting to see how things will continue in the new year.

At some point in the course of the year, most observers agree that the major central banks will at least take a break from raising interest rates.

But there is likely to be a struggle over how often and how much interest rates will be raised beforehand.

Karsten Junius, economist at Bank J. Safra Sarasin, says the Bank of England will be the first to pause, followed by America's Fed and only then the ECB.

Michael Schubert, ECB specialist at Commerzbank, expects a rate hike of 0.5 percentage points at least for the first meeting of the ECB Council in the new year, followed by two interest rate hikes of 0.25 percentage points each before the break.

ECB chief economist Philip Lane recently indicated in an interview with the newspaper "Milano Finanza" that it was assumed that "further interest rate hikes" would be necessary - that didn't just sound like another one in December.

Berenberg economist Schmieding, on the other hand, thinks that from his point of view the ECB would be “well advised” not to raise interest rates at all next year – because inflation will fall sharply on its own without the ECB “unnecessarily deepening the recession or extend "must.

Now on Thursday, however, the ECB not only wants to announce the next interest rate hike.

It is also likely to raise its inflation forecast for 2023, says Jari Stehn, Goldman Sachs' chief European economist.

"QT" is the name of the step, "quantitative tightening", i.e. quantitative tightening - the opposite of "QE", "quantitative easing", the bond purchases.

The ECB has bought bonds for almost 5 trillion euros.

According to what we hear from the central bank, there should be no sales, as recently in Great Britain, at least for the time being.

But the ECB is likely to start next year not fully reinvesting some of the money from maturing bonds.

However, this should only affect the older APP bond program, not the PEPP crisis program.

The central bank wants to reserve the right to buy more bonds from individual euro countries if their bond yields shoot up too quickly as a result of the interest rate hikes.

Commerzbank expects the ECB to reduce its bond holdings more slowly than the Fed - namely by only around 3 percent a year, while the Americans are likely to risk around 7 percent.