Low vegetable prices reduce inflation in Aug

The year-on-year change in consumer prices was 0.2 per cent in August, which was 0.4 per cent lower than that in the previous month, according to the Statistics Finland.

In July, inflation stood at 0.6 per cent. The decrease in inflation was caused by lower prices of vegetables, for example.

Consumer prices were raised most in August by increases in the prices of cigarettes, refundable prescription medicines, games of chance, and wireless telephone services from one year ago.

The rising of consumer prices from one year back was curbed most by reductions in the prices of hotel rooms, fuels and international flights, as well as decreases in average interest rate on housing loans. From July to August, the month-on-month change of consumer prices was 0.0 per cent.

Core inflation (inflation excluding food and energy) was 0.5 per cent in August. Inflation on food (including non-alcoholic beverages) was 0.9 per cent in August and inflation on energy (including fuels, electricity, petrol) minus 4.1 per cent.

Each mid-month, Statistics Finland's interviewers collect altogether 21,000 prices on nearly 470 commodities from approximately 2,200 outlets to build the Consumer Price Index.

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