Bulgarian monthly inflation at 0.5% in August
Bulgaria’s consumer price index rose by 0.5 per cent in August, the National Statistical Institute (NSI) said on September 12, with higher fuel prices having a domino effect on other inflation components.
Cumulative inflation for the first eight months of the year was 2.6 per cent, pushed higher by the big electricity prices hike in July and the high fuel prices in the second half of the summer.
In recent years, the statistics board often reported deflation in summer, when food prices are pushed down by seasonal fluctuations. In August 2011, the consumer price index fell by 0.3 per cent.
This was not the case this year, when fuel prices jumped by 5.1 per cent for the A95 petrol and three per cent for diesel fuel, which led to a 0.9 per cent increase in food prices and 0.7 per cent increase of non-food prices. Services prices were flat compared to July.
The harmonised consumer price index, the figure calculated by the statistics board for comparison with inflation in the European Union, was 0.6 per cent up in August and the year-on-year figure was an increase of 3.1 per cent at the end of the month.
(Photo: Alessandro Paiva)
