Consumer Price Indices - Basic Information
Commentary | Contents |
YEAR 2002: LOWEST YEAR-ON-YEAR INFLATION RATE SINCE 1990
Consumer Price Indices – December 2002
Year-on-year inflation rate, an increase in the index of consumer prices (CPI) for 2002 compared to the index of consumer prices for 2001 was 1.8% (the lowest year-on-year inflation rate since 1990). The inflation slowed down 2.9 percentage points on 2001. An accelerated rise in prices (compared to 2001) was recorded for three divisions of the consumer basket. In all the other divisions of the consumer basket the growth rate slowed down or prices dropped. The inflation was mainly influenced by lower prices of ‘food and non-alcoholic beverages’, ‘transport’ and by a slower price growth of expenditure on housing. Prices of pork, poultry, coffee, and eggs went down more than 12% and prices of smoked products, tropical fruits and sugar dropped about 5%. On the other hand, price increases were recorded for potatoes (by 13.5%), fresh vegetables, butter and cocoa (by about 5%). Responsible for the lower ‘transport’ prices were mainly lower prices of automotive fuel (a drop of 9.5%). Prices of clothes and footwear went down (by 2.5% and 2.9%, respectively). The highest growth was recorded for prices of ’housing, water, energy, fuel’. The increase was lower than in the previous years due to two decreases in prices of natural gas and a slower increase in prices of electricity. Prices of natural gas went up 1.6% only, of electricity 9.4% and of net rentals 6.3%.
The growth of both market prices and regulated prices slowed down in 2002: from 3.3% in 2001 to 0.9% in 2002 and from 10.6% in 2001 to 5.6% in 2002, respectively.
Inflation rate calculated comparing the CPI in December 2002 and December 2001 reached 0.6%. The increases declined markedly in the first half of 2002. Since July, however, the year-on-year growth virtually stabilized at a very low level. This development was mainly influenced by prices of ‘food and non-alcoholic beverages’, ’housing, water, energy, fuel’ and ‘recreation and culture’.
On a month-on-month basis, the consumer prices went up 0.2%. The increase was brought about by higher prices of food due to seasonal prices of fruit and fresh vegetables (increases of 18.4% and 14.0%, respectively). Meat prices went down 2.5%. In ‘transport’, prices of automotive fuel continued to drop (by 1.5%) and so did the railway fare paid for short distance.
In November, the EU harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) grew 2.1% y-o-y (as in October). In the Czech Republic, the y-o-y HICP increase in November was also the same as in October (0.2%).