(CIANEWS) - On Thursday, July 13, 2023, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala announced that inflation had fallen below 10% for the first time since January 2022. The prime minister said that specific steps taken by the government had helped to achieve this. He mentioned, among other things, the capping of energy prices, government savings, the recovery of public budgets and pressure on food and fuel suppliers. However, Moore Czech Republic partner Petr Kymlička warned that a wage-inflation spiral was imminent. Jakub Seidler, chief economist at the Czech Banking Association, said that while the decline in inflation in 1H 2023 was relatively rapid, it will slow down in 2H and annual inflation will not fall below the 7% threshold. It will accelerate slightly towards the end of the year. Trinity Bank's chief economist Lukáš Kovanda expects the central bank to cut rates before the end of the year and certainly next year in response to the decline in the inflation rate.