Inflation climbs to 4.5% in Feb

The year-on-year change in consumer prices was 4.5 per cent in February, according to Statistics Finland.

In January, inflation stood at 4.4 per cent.

Consumer prices were raised most in February by increases in the prices of electricity, fuels, capital repair on detached houses, and renovation of blocks of flats from one year ago.

The rising of consumer prices from one year back was curbed most by reductions in the prices of children’s day care, average interest rate on housing loans and regular ferry service.

From January to February, the month-on-month change of consumer prices was 0.5 per cent, which was caused by higher prices of fuels compared to previous month, for example.

Each mid-month, Statistics Finland's interviewers collect altogether 19,000 prices on nearly 400 commodities from approximately 2,100 outlets for the Consumer Price Index.

The 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.