In August, the annual rate of inflation as measured by the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) was 7.0%, up from 6.8% in July, the National Statistics Office said today.

The 12-month moving average rate for August stood at 4.3%.

The NSO said that the highest annual inflation rates in August were recorded in food and non-alcoholic beverages (11.3%) and Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels (9.2%).

On the other hand, the lowest annual inflation rates were registered in clothing and footwear (0.4%) and communication (0.9%), the NSO said.

The latest data from the NSO shows that the largest upward impact on annual inflation (see note below) was measured in the food and non-alcoholic beverages Index (+1.91 percentage points). This was largely due to higher prices of meat.

The second and third largest impacts were measured in the restaurants and hotels Index (+1.35 percentage points) and the transport index (+0.98 percentage points), mainly on account of higher prices of restaurant services and car maintenance services respectively.

The NSO also noted that, no downward impacts on annual inflation were registered for the month of August.

In July, the NSO said that the annual rate of change registered by the Maltese HICP All-items was 6.8%, 2.1 percentage points lower than the 8.9% registered for the euro area.

The annual rate of change for the Maltese All- items HICP excluding energy and unprocessed food was 7.0%, 1.9 percentage points higher than the 5.1% registered for the euro area, the NSO said.

Note: An impact is a measure showing the change in inflation as a result of the inclusion of an index. Such an impact takes into account both the weight and the annual rate of inflation by division.

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