The Consumer Price Index (CPI) has shot up by 7.4%, the biggest rise since July 1989, according to the National Statistics Institute (INE) on Monday, which will have to be confirmed in two weeks’ time.
Inflation is driven, as has been the case for months, by the price of energy, but it is already spreading to the rest of the goods and services in the consumer basket. In fact, core inflation, which does not take into account the price of energy products or fresh food because they are the most volatile, has risen by 3% this month.
This development is due to generalised rises in most of its components. Among them, it is worth noting those of the prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages and those of fuels and combustibles. Also the behaviour of electricity prices, which decreased this month but less than in February 2021″, explained the INE.
In monthly rate, comparing February prices with those of January, the rise was 0.6%.
According to Nadia Calviño, the government’s economic vice-president, “It is a significant rise, but we must bear in mind that it is mainly due to energy prices and that we are comparing it with the flat month of last year. I always say that you have to take perspective. We started 2021 with 0% inflation, with flat prices. So in the first few months of this year it is normal for there to be a high inflation rate, because it is being compared with months in which inflation was very low”.
The First Vice-President of the Government recalled that the upturn had already begun “in the middle of last year”, so now “it is a question of preventing it from becoming a structural factor”. “This does not detract from the fact that the evolution of prices is the main impact this war could have from an economic point of view”.
