Rate of inflation continues to rise

In July, the annual rate of inflation as measured by the Retail Price Index was 6.82%, up from the 6.21% in June 2022, the National Statistics Office said.

The Retail Price Index measures monthly price changes in the cost of purchasing a representative basket of consumer goods and services, and is closely linked with the Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) increases and periodic rent payment adjustments.

The 12-month moving average rate for July stood at 4.08%.

In July 2022, the largest upward impact on annual inflation was registered in the Food Index (+2.47 percentage points), largely due to higher prices of take-aways. The second and third largest impacts were measured in the housing Index (+1.21 percentage points) and the transport and communication Index (+1.11 percentage points), mainly on account of higher prices of house maintenance services and new cars respectively.

The downward impact on annual inflation was registered in the clothing and footwear Index (-0.02 percentage points), mainly due to lower prices of garments.

In July, the Housing Index registered the highest annual inflation rate of 15.33%, of which Rent registered an annual rate of 6.06%, Materials for house maintenance registered an annual rate of 15.87% and Services for house maintenance registered an annual rate of 17.84%. The Clothing and footwear Index registered the lowest annual inflation rate of -0.27%, of which Clothing registered an annual rate of -1.01% and Footwear registered an annual rate of 2.84%.