Inflation fell to 8.1% in December 2023, compared with 8.3% in November 2023, according to a note published on Friday by the National Statistics Institute (INS) on the consumer price index for December 2023.
This fall in inflation, despite the monthly increase, is due to the slowdown in the rate of price increases between December and November 2023 compared to the same period last year.
According to the INS, food prices rose by 12.3% year-on-year in December 2023. This increase was mainly due to a 35% rise in the price of coffee powder, a 26.6% rise in the price of beef, a 25.1% rise in the price of edible oils, a 20.7% rise in the price of condiments, a 14.1% rise in the price of fresh vegetables and a 12.5% rise in the price of fresh fruit.
Over the whole year, the price of industrial goods rose by 7%, driven by a 5.4% increase in the price of building materials, a 9.8% increase in the price of clothing and a 7.7% increase in the price of household goods.
In services, prices went up by 6.1% year-on-year, mainly due to higher prices for restaurants, cafés and hotels (11%), public and private transport (7%), financial services (13.3%) and insurance services (5.1%).
In terms of contributions to inflation by category, the largest contributions to inflation were made by the ‘unregulated non-food’ and ‘unregulated food’ groups, at 4% and 3.2% respectively. The group ‘regulated food’ made the smallest contribution, at 0.1%.
In terms of contributions to inflation by sector, the INS has indicated that the ‘Manufactured goods’ group and the ‘Services’ group are the sectors that have made the largest contributions to overall inflation, at 2.7% and 2.1% respectively.
The core inflation rate (excluding food and energy) fell to 7.1% in December 2023, from 7.3% in the previous month. Prices for unregulated products rose by 9.4% year-on-year. Prices of regulated products increased by 3.9%.
Prices of unregulated food rose by 13.8%, compared with 3.3% for regulated food.
