YEAR-ON-YEAR growth in consumer prices in Slovakia accelerated from 4.3 percent in April to 4.6 percent in May. As a result, average headline inflation for the first five months of the year was 4.2 percent, a rise of 0.1 percentage points compared to the January-April period. Monthly headline inflation went up by 0.1 percent to 0.3 percent in May, the Slovak Statistics Office told the SITA newswire on June 11.
Net inflation, which excludes the effects of changes in the price of food, stood at 3.5 percent year-on-year for the third month running, 0.1 percentage points above this year's average. Monthly net inflation increased from 0.1 percent in April to 0.2 percent in May.
Food prices continued their year-on-year climb, with the rate of growth increasing in May. Food price inflation rose from 9.4 percent in April, to 10.1 percent in May. Food prices increased by an annualised 9.1 percent on average in the January-May period.
Core inflation, which measures the growth of consumer prices but excludes regulated prices and administrative interventions such as taxes, also rose. Year-on-year core inflation increased from 4.6 percent in April to 4.8 percent in May, reaching 0.4 percent on a month-on-month basis. Average core inflation for the first five months of this year stood at 4.4 percent.