and the rate of core inflation which strips out volatile items like food and fuel is actually going up. rising interest rates are piling the pressure on millions of mortgage borrowers here in the uk who are facing steep rises in monthly bills. the bbc has been hearing from some of them. rebecca from greater manchester, craig in cambridgeshire, and rose who lives in hampshire. just three homeowners out of hundreds of thousands of people facing a huge rise in their mortgage costs over the coming months. at this moment in time, at the end ofjune, i will make my final payment of £434 when my current deal ends, and thereafter i have been told to expect my payments will be over £1,800. i m currently paying £560 a month. at the end ofjuly, it will go on to variable and it will go up to £1,200 a month. 0ur mortgage has gone up by over £2,200 a year. - it s a huge impact on our- expenditure and has an impact on the family as a whole. rose has already been cutting costs on
hovering around 2%. right now, it sits somewhere around 4%. that s certainly better than where it was last year. somewhere above 8.5%. but it is still not good enough. and it s why the fed chair jerome powell has said more interest rate hikes seem pretty likely. in may, the 12 month change in the cpi came in at 4.0% and the change in the core cpi was 5.3%. inflation has moderated somewhat since the middle of last year. nonetheless, inflation pressures continue to run high and the process of getting inflation back down to 2% has a long way to go. the theory is by making it more expensive to borrow money it should cool off the economy. and ten rate hikes later, that tactic seems to be working. of course, the danger is the us economy could fall into a recession. those hawkish comments by mr powell had certainly weighed on investor minds. the nikki index is trading flat as japanese investors look at what happened on wall street overnight aftermarket sales for a third straight on
sluggish exports and waning demand had been weighing on the economy. earlier i spoke with a former us diplomat who explained the balancing act germany has to trade with china. i think germany is trying to do what it can to enhance the economic relationship while still respecting the important political alliance with the united states of course the crux of this is ukraine, where both germany and the united states support ukraine at pushing back russia and china is on the other side of that with a warm embrace of putin. what challenges will both countries face moving forward economically? there is a question for germany about dependency or concentration risk. remember as a lead up to ukraine germany continue to build its economic relationship with russia and ended up in a vulnerable position in regard to energy supplies. i think there is some sense it s germany might want to repeat that with china or not. at the same time they have a business obligation to do what they can to b
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