Price growth remains low, inflation drops to 2.1% in June

2024-07-09 14:22:00, Ekonomi CNA

Price growth remains low, inflation drops to 2.1% in June

Illustrative photo, taken from Google

In June, prices were about 2% more expensive compared to the same month a year ago.

INSTAT announced that the annual change in the consumer price index in June 2024 is 2.1%, a year ago this change was 4.5%.

Since February of this year, inflation has fallen below the Bank of Albania's target of 3% and far from the level of 8.3% that it reached in October 2022. The Bank of Albania, in its meeting a week ago, decided to soften the monetary policy for the first time the first since the beginning of 2022.

The objective of the Bank of Albania is to maintain inflation and it achieves this through the base rate. When inflation is on an upward trend, the bank increases the interest rate and vice versa. At the last meeting BSH lowered the base rate by 0.25 percentage points for the first time since March 2022.

The bank said the fall in inflation in the second quarter was relatively rapid, driven by increased supply of food items in regional and domestic markets. The effects of this hit on inflation are expected to be present during the rest of the year.

The price trend is dictated by foods

According to INSTAT, the annual increase in prices in the month of June was mainly influenced by the group "Food and non-alcoholic beverages" with +0.72 percentage points, followed by the group "Rent, water, fuel and energy" with +0.42 percentage points.

Also, the prices of the group "Furniture, home appliances and home maintenance" were affected by +0.27 percentage points, the prices of the group "Alcoholic beverages and tobacco" by +0.16 percentage points, the prices of the group "Various goods and services " with +0.12 percentage points, the prices of the "Clothing and shoes" group with +0.11 percentage points, the prices of the "Hotels, cafes and restaurants" group with +0.10 percentage points, the prices of the "Health" group with +0.07 percentage points, the prices of the "Educational service" group by +0.06 percentage points, the prices of the "Transportation" group by 0.05 percentage points and the prices of the "Entertainment and culture" group by +0.04 percentage points .

Compared to the month of June 2023, the largest increase in prices is observed in the group "Furniture, household appliances and home maintenance" with 3.7%, followed by the groups "Alcoholic beverages and tobacco" with 3.3%, "Clothing and shoes" ” with 3.2%, “Rent, water, fuel and energy”, “Hotels, cafes and restaurants” and “Miscellaneous goods and services” with 2.2% each, “Educational service” with 2.1%, "Food and non-alcoholic beverages" with 2.0%, "Entertainment and culture" with 1.9%, "Health" with 1.7%, "Transport" with 0.9% and "Communication" with 0.1%. /Monitor

Within the food group, the prices of the subgroup "milk, cheese and eggs" had an increase of 3.4%, followed by the subgroups "fish" with 3.3%, "sugar, jam, honey, chocolate and sweets" with 2.9 %, "vegetables including potatoes" with 2.6%, "meat" with 2.5%, etc./Montor