The year-on-year inflation rate in the euro zone fell to 8.6% in January, while in the European Union it slowed to 10.0%, according to data released this Thursday by the official European statistics office.
According to Eurostat, the annual inflation rate of 8.6% in January in the single currency space – slightly above the 8.5% anticipated in the ‘flash’ estimate published earlier this month – compares with the 9 .2% in December 2022, this being the third consecutive decrease after 17 months of successive increases. A year earlier, the rate was 5.1%.
In the 27 Member States as a whole, the rate of 10.0% in the first month of the current year compares with the inflation rate of 10.4% registered in December and with 5.6% in January 2022 .
Eurostat points out that, compared to December, the annual inflation rate – measured by the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) – decreased in January in 18 Member States, having increased in the remaining nine.
Portugal was one of the countries that registered a new decline, for the third consecutive month, when the indicator fell to 8.6% -precisely in line with the average for the euro zone-, compared to 9.8% last December ( in January last year it was 3.4%).
The lowest annual inflation rates were recorded in Luxembourg (5.8%), Spain (5.9%), Cyprus and Malta (both 6.8%), while the highest were observed in Hungary (26.2%). %), Latvia (21.4%) and the Czech Republic. (19.1%).
The greatest contribution to the annual inflation rate in the euro zone came from the food, alcohol and tobacco sector (2.94 pp), followed by energy (2.17 pp), services (1.80 pp) and non-industrial goods. energy (1.73 pages).
The inflation rate in the euro zone began to accelerate from June 2021, mainly due to the increase in energy prices, and reached record values since November 2021, registering a peak of 10.6% in October 2022, registering the first pullback last November, followed by more pullbacks in December and January of this year.
The HICP measures inflation on a comparable basis between EU countries, therefore data are presented for these countries, as well as for the euro area and the EU as a whole.
Source: TSF
