LJUBLJANA (Slovenia), April 2 (SeeNews) – Slovenia's consumer prices rose by 0.5% year-on-year in March, significantly slower than the 2.0% annual growth recorded in February, the country's statistical office said.
The largest deflation effect in March came from the 27.6% annual drop in electricity prices which pushed the inflation rate down by 0.9 percentage points, the statistical office said in a statement earlier this week.
A decline in the annual inflation rate by additional 0.2 pps resulted from lower prices of petroleum products, as the prices of liquid fuels decreased by 7.3% and fuels and lubricants depreciated by 3.0%.
At the same time, the largest upward impact of 0.7 pps came from food prices which increased 4.9% on the year.
On a monthly comparison basis, Slovenia's consumer prices fell by 0.8% in March, following a 0.7% increase in February.
The statistical office said that the monthly deflation was mostly a result of lower prices of electricity, gas and other fuels, which pushed the inflation rate down by 1.1 pps due to a government decree that has lowered electricity prices by 29.3% amid the ongoing coronavirus crisis.
In addition, 10% lower prices of package holidays in March pushed the consumer price index (CPI) down by another 0.4 pps, and lower prices of petroleum products (with liquid fuels dropping 3.3%, and fuels and lubricants shrinking 1.8%) took another 0.1 pps from the monthly CPI.
Measured by the EU's harmonised index of consumer prices, Slovenia's annual inflation decelerated to 0.7% in March, from 1.6% in March 2019.