Inflation eases slightly

Inflation eased slightly last month although it still remained above the average in the euro zone.

New figures published by Eurostat yesterday, show that Malta's annual rate of inflation last month stood at 4.1 per cent, a 0.2 drop on the annual inflation rate for March.

The annual average inflation rate in the eurozone also slipped slightly hitting 3.3 per cent, down from 3.6 per cent in March.

On the other hand, Malta's inflation on a monthly basis last month rose by a staggering 2.3 per cent over the previous month. This was the highest increase in the eurozone where the average stood at 0.3 per cent.

The lowest annual rates were observed in the Netherlands (1.7 per cent), Portugal (2.5 per cent) and Germany (2.6 per cent) and the highest in Latvia (17.4 per cent), Bulgaria (13.4 per cent) and Lithuania (11.9 per cent).

Compared with March, annual inflation rose in eight member states, remained stable in four and fell in 15.

The main components with the highest annual rates in the euro area were food (six per cent) and housing and transport (4.8 per cent each) while the lowest annual rates were observed for communications (-1.6 per cent), recreation and culture (-0.4 per cent) and clothing (0.8 per cent).

In the case of the detailed sub-indices, fuels for transport (+0.41 percentage points), heating oil (+0.25), milk, cheese and eggs (+0.24) and bread & cereals (+0.16) had the largest upward impacts on the headline rate while cars (-0.16), telecommunications (-0.15) and garments (-0.14) had the biggest downward impacts.