CONSUMER PRICES

Inflation: food prices rose in Finland, energy got cheaper

A City Market grocery store. Photo: Foreigner.fi.

The Nomad Today

14 de September de 2020 (10:49 h.)

Prices of cigarettes, refundable prescription medicines, games of chance and wireless telephone services also increased in August from one year before.

Finland registered low inflation in August, 0.2% compared to the same month last year.

However, this does not mean that there were no price increases for goods and services. Food was moderately more expensive compared to the same month of the previous year, but this effect was outweighed by a greater drop in energy prices.

In the previous month, July, inflation stood higher, at 0.6%. The decrease in inflation compared with the previous month was caused by lower prices of vegetables, for example.

According to Statistics Finland's data, in August consumer prices were raised most by increases in the prices of cigarettes, refundable prescription medicines, games of chance and wireless telephone services from one year ago.

Coronavirus crisis

The rising of prices of goods and services from one year back was curbed most by reductions in the prices of hotel rooms, fuels and international flights, partly due to the coronavirus crisis, as well as decreases in average interest rate on housing loans.

From July to August, the month-on-month change of consumer prices was 0%.

Source: Statistics Finland.

Food 0.9% more expensive

Core inflation (inflation excluding the most the most unstable items in the shopping cart, such as food and energy) was 0.5% in August. Inflation on food (including non-alcoholic beverages) was 0.9% in August and inflation on energy (including fuels, electricity, petrol) -4.1%.

According to the preliminary data on the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices, the rate of inflation in the euro area was -0.2% in August. The final euro area inflation for July was 0.4%. The corresponding figure for Finland was 0.3% in August.

The Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices does not include owner-occupancy, games of chance, interests on consumption and other credits, fire insurance on owner-occupied dwellings, the vehicle tax or fishing and hunting fees.

The consumption items included in the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices, as well as the rules governing its compilation, have been defined in EU regulations.