Inflation increases to 1.3% in March

The year-on-year change in consumer prices was 1.3 per cent in March, according to Statistics Finland. In February, inflation stood at 0.9 per cent.

From March last year to this year´s March, increases in the prices of petrol, diesel, detached houses, cigarettes, and capital repair on detached houses had the largest upward impacts on the consumer price index.

Decreases in the average interest rates on housing loans and consumer credit and the prices of hotel rooms, beer served in restaurants, and televisions had the largest downward impacts.

From February to March, consumer prices rose by 0.2 per cent.

Each mid-month, Statistics Finland's interviewers collect altogether 19,000 prices on nearly 400 commodities from about 2,100 outlets for the Consumer Price Index. T

he price data is supplemented with scanner data wherefrom 5 million individual prices are included into calculation. In addition, some 1,000 items of price data are gathered by centralised collection.