Inflation inches up 0.2% in Sep

The year-on-year change in consumer prices calculated by the Statistics Finland was 0.2 per cent in September. Inflation stood at 0.2 per cent in August, too, according to the Statistics Finland.

Consumer prices rose most in September due to increases in the prices of cigarettes, refundable prescription medicines, games of chance, and wireless telephone services from one year back. Any year-on-year rise in consumer prices was curbed most by reductions in the prices of fuels, hotel rooms, and international flights, as well as decreases in average interest rate on housing loans. From August to September, the month-on-month change of consumer prices was 0.0 per cent.

Core inflation (inflation excluding food and energy) was 0.3 per cent in September. Inflation on food (including non-alcoholic beverages) was 2.0 per cent in September and inflation on energy (including fuels, electricity, and petrol) was 5.2 per cent.

Each mid-month, Statistics Finland’s interviewers collect altogether 21,000 prices on nearly 470 commodities from approximately 2,200 outlets for building 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.