Bulgaria annual inflation reaches 12-year high of 6.0% in October
Bulgaria’s annual consumer price index (CPI) rose by six per cent in October, up from 4.8 per cent inflation recorded a month earlier, data released by the National Statistical Institute (NSI) on November 15 showed.
This was the highest year-on-year increase in consumer prices since February 2009, when the figure was also six per cent.
Monthly inflation in October was 1.8 per cent, the highest increase in the monthly CPI since August 2007, when it was 3.1 per cent.
Food prices in October were 1.6 per cent higher compared to the previous month, while non-food prices rose by three per cent and services prices increased by 0.7 per cent.
Compared to October 2020, food prices were 5.8 per cent higher, while non-food and services prices rose by 7.1 per cent and 4.8 per cent, respectively.
The harmonised CPI figure, calculated by NSI for comparison with European Union data, rose by 1.3 per cent on a monthly basis in October, while the annual harmonised CPI inflation was 5.2 per cent.
This was also the highest year-on-year increase in the harmonised CPI since February 2009, when the figure was 5.3 per cent.
Food and beverage prices were 5.5 per cent higher, on an annual basis, while the price of utilities and housing increased by 8.1 per cent and transportation costs were 15.5 per cent higher compared to October 2020. The three categories account for about 48.8 per cent of the harmonised CPI basket.
Beyond the Covid-19 pandemic’s impact on the inflation indicator, it limited NSI’s ability to collect the data, with the statistics body saying that it had to extrapolate about two per cent of the total CPI and harmonised CPI, the same as a month earlier.
(Illustration: svilen001/sxc.hu)
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