Spain Inflation Remains Steady

The General Consumer Price Index rose in August by 2.2% year-on year, a rate that coincides with the advance figure posted by the National Statistics Institute and with the figure for July. Inflation has stabilized due to the positive trend of almost all components last month, except food prices, which rose slightly.

The growth rate of energy product prices remained stable in August, posting a decline of 0.1% on the previous month, to stand at 11.1% year-on-year. This slight moderation can mainly be explained by the prices of fuels and lubricants, which posted a decline of 1.4 points in August, with year-on-year growth of 13%. For its part, electricity price inflation rose by 2.7 points on the previous month, with year-on-year growth of 10.8%, Eurasiareview reported.

Unprocessed food prices in August rose by 0.6% more than in July, at a year-on-year rate of 4.6%.There was a noteworthy rise of 4.3 points in fresh fruit prices in the last month, to 17.3%.

Core inflation, (which excludes unprocessed food and energy products–the most volatile elements of the CPI), shrank slightly by 0.1% in August to a year-on-year rate of 0.8%.

Noteworthy among the components of core inflation were the prices of services, which slowed by 0.2% in August, to a year-on-year rate of 1.3%, mainly due to the tourism and the hotel and catering industry, which fell by 0.4% on the previous month to stand at year-on-year growth of 1.1%.

For its part, the price of non-energy industrial goods fell to a year-on-year rate of 0.1% after stabilizing in August, mainly due to the 0.6% decline in the price of automobiles to stand at 0.1%.

Processed food, soft drinks and tobacco prices declined slightly by 0.1% to stand at year-on-year growth of 0.7%.

The year-on-year CPI at constant taxes in August stood at 2.2%, the same as the general CPI. In month-on-month terms, the CPI posted a rise of 0.1% in August 2018, 0.1% down on the same month of 2017.

The INE also published harmonized CPI figures for the month of August, with a year-on-year decline of 0.1%, to stand at a rate of 2.2%.