Increase powered by prices of energy and food
Inflation will have accelerated to 3% in December, National Statistics Institute INE estimates today – a ‘jump’ of 0.5 percentage points compared to November.
In its December 30 press release INE also says that the average inflation rate for 2024, which is part of the December estimate, will round out at 2.4%.
The underlying inflation rate – which excludes unprocessed food and energy from calculations because they are volatile in price and can therefore distort the general price trend – also rose in December to 2.8%, compared to 2.6% the previous month.
Energy inflation accelerated sharply this month: compared to December 2023, energy prices rose by 4.9%. In November, the year-on-year change was lower, at 2.1%.
Inflation in unprocessed food, such as raw meat and fish, fruit and vegetables, also rose significantly in this month, up to 3.4%, compared to 1.9% in November.
“These two aggregates made the most significant contributions to the acceleration of the total CPI (Consumer Price Index),” INE explains.
Chain-wise, i.e. from November to December, the inflation rate was estimated at 0.1%; whereas between October and November the rate was negative at 0.2%.
Source material: Expresso
