INE confirms price growth slowing to 2.2% in April

The annual inflation rate in April was 2.2%, 0.1 percentage point less than in March, the National Institute of Statistics (INE) confirmed on Monday.

Rounded to one decimal place, the rate of change of the consumer price index (IPC) published by INE this Monday confirms the value of the quick estimate published on April 30th.

Core inflation (the overall index excluding unprocessed food and energy) recorded an annualized deviation of 2.0%, down 0.5 percentage points from March.

In April, the fluctuation of the energy index increased to 7.9% (4.4% in the previous month), which INE justifies by “the base effect associated with the decline in prices recorded in April 2023 (monthly rate of change -3.2% )”.

The Raw Food Index recorded zero change (-0.5% in the previous month).

In monthly terms, the IPC in April changed by 0.5% (2.0% in the previous month and 0.6% in April 2023). Excluding unprocessed food and energy, the CPI change was 0.6% (2.4% in the previous month and 1.0% in April 2023).

As for the average variation over the past 12 months, it decreased to 2.6% (2.9% in March), and excluding unprocessed food and energy products from RPC, the average rate of change was 3.5% (3.9% in previous year). month).

As for the Portuguese Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP), its annual deviation was 2.3%, 0.3 percentage points lower than the previous month and 0.1 percentage points lower than Eurostat’s estimate for the euro area (in March, the rate in Portugal was higher than in the euro area by 0.2 percentage points).

Excluding unprocessed food and energy, Portugal’s HICP reached an annual deviation of 2.1% in April (2.8% in March), lower than the eurozone equivalent (estimated at 2.8%).

In April, HIPC recorded a monthly change of 1.1% (2.3% in the previous month and 1.3% in April 2023), and the average change over the last 12 months was 3.5% (3.8% in the previous month ).