The headline inflation rate in Slovakia is continuing to fall. Year-on-year (y/y) growth in consumer prices slowed from 2.6 percent in March to 2.3 percent in April.
Average y/y inflation for the first four months of 2009 amounted to 2.9 percent. Prices even fell 0.1 percent in April on a monthly basis, and declined 0.2 percent in February, the Statistics Office reported on May 13. Food prices in Slovakia in April were lower than in the same month of the previous year. While in April food prices fell 2.1 percent y/y, they were at the same level as a year ago in March 2009. A monthly drop in food prices of 0.8 percent in March deepened to one percent in April. On average, for the first four months of this year, food prices were only 0.1 percent higher than in the same period a year ago, the SITA newswire wrote.
The effect of food price movements has contributed to the deceleration of core inflation, which measures the growth of consumer prices excluding regulated prices and administrative interventions in the area of taxes. It slowed to 1.2 percent in April from 1.6 percent in March. Average core inflation was 1.9 percent in the January – April period. SITA
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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