Higher price of electricity ups inflation in December

Consumer prices rose 0.9 per cent year on year in December last, according to Statistics Finland.

In November, inflation stood at 0.7 per cent. The rise in inflation was caused by higher prices of electricity, for example, in 2019, the average inflation rate was 1.0 per cent.

Consumer prices rose most in December 2019 by price hikes of electricity, cigarettes, rents and petrol from that of one year back.

The consumer prices rising since one year back was curbed most by reductions in the prices of average interest rate on housing loans, mobile phones and televisions.

From November to December, the month-on-month change in consumer prices was 0.1 per cent, caused by vegetables being more expensive, for example.

Each mid-month, Statistics Finland’s interviewers collect altogether 44,000 prices on nearly 470 commodities from approximately 2,700 outlets for the Consumer Price Index.

Price data is supplemented with scanner data including around three million food prices. In addition, some 1,000 items of price data are gathered by centralised collection.

According to the preliminary data on the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices, the rate of inflation in the euro area in December was 1.3 per cent. In November, it was 1.0 per cent. The corresponding figure for Finland was 1.1 per cent in December.