Inflation fell to 9.6% in May from 10.1% in April, the National Statistics Institute (INS) announced on Monday, June 5. This is the first time since November 2022 that inflation has fallen below the 10% mark.
This fall in inflation, despite the monthly increase, is due to the slowdown in the rate of price increases between May and April this year compared with the same period last year.
The rate of increase for ‘housing, water, gas, electricity and other fuels’ fell from 2.5% to 0.4%, for ‘transport services’ from 1% to 0.3% and for ‘furniture, household equipment and routine household maintenance’ from 1.2% to 0.5%.
Food prices rose by 15.9% in May 2023 year-on-year. This increase was mainly due to price rises of 31.2% for sheep meat, 28.2% for poultry meat, 25.6% for eggs, 23.4% for edible oils and 21.1% for beef.
Over the year as a whole, manufactured goods rose by 8.2%, driven by a 7.4% increase in the price of construction materials, a 9.7% rise in the price of clothing and a 9.7% rise in the price of household goods.
In services, prices rose by 6.4% year-on-year, mainly due to a 10.1% increase in the price of restaurants, cafés and hotels, a 17.5% increase in the price of public and private transport services and a 20.7% increase in the price of financial services.
The core inflation (excluding food and energy) fell to 7.5% in May from 7.7% in the previous month.
In fact, the prices of unregulated products rose by 11.1% year-on-year. Prices of regulated products rose by 5%, while prices of unregulated food rose by 18.6%, compared with 0.8% for regulated food.
