Reported by the Editorial Team
Year-on-year inflation in the OECD rose to 4.4% in April, up from 4% in March, driven by rising energy prices.
Energy inflation continued to soar in April, reaching 13.2%, an increase of 5.1 percentage points compared with March.
Food inflation in the OECD also rose, by 0.4 percentage points to 4%, whilst core inflation (excluding food and energy) remained virtually stable at 3.6%.
Headline inflation rose in 23 OECD countries, with the largest increases – of 1 percentage point or more – recorded in Belgium, Chile, Greece, Italy and Turkey. By contrast, inflation remained relatively stable in six OECD countries and fell in nine, with the largest drop (0.6 percentage points) in Sweden, where falling food prices more than offset the rise in energy prices.
In the G7, year-on-year headline inflation rose to 3.2%, up from 2.8% in March. Among G7 countries, headline inflation was highest in the United States at 3.8%, its highest level since May 2023. Inflation in Canada, France, Germany and Italy also rose to levels last seen in 2023 or 2024. By contrast, in the UK, core inflation fell to 2.8%, its lowest level since September 2021, contributing to a decline in headline inflation.
Nevertheless, core inflation remained the main contributor to headline inflation in the three G7 countries with the highest inflation rates: Germany, the UK and the US.
