The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased by 0.5% in August compared with the previous month and raised its year-on-year rate by three tenths of a percentage point to 2.6%, mainly due to the rise in fuel and liquid fuel prices.
With August’s rise, inflation has now risen for two consecutive months, after rising four tenths of a percentage point in July to 2.3%, according to advanced data published on Wednesday by the National Statistics Institute (INE).
In contrast to the rise in fuel and liquid fuel prices, Statistics highlights that electricity prices rose less in August this year than they did in the same month in 2022.
The agency includes in the advance CPI data an estimate of core inflation (without unprocessed food and energy products), which in August fell by one tenth of a percentage point to 6.1%, placing it 3.5 points above the general CPI.
In the eighth month of 2023, the annual rate of the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) stood at 2.4%, three tenths of a percentage point above the rate recorded the previous month. The estimated monthly change in the HICP was 0.5%. The INE will publish the final CPI data for August on 12 September.
