Inflation rate rises to 4.2% in February

  • Lusa
  • 10 March 2022

The underlying inflation indicator (total index excluding unprocessed food and energy products) also accelerated, registering a year-on-year change of 3.2%, compared to 2.4% in January.

The year-on-year rate of change of the consumer price index (CPI) rose to 4.2% in February, up 0.9 percentage points from the previous month, Statistics Portugal (INE), confirmed on Thursday.

Rounded to one decimal place, this rate coincides with the value of the flash estimate released on February 28.

The underlying inflation indicator (total index excluding unprocessed food and energy products) also accelerated, registering a year-on-year change of 3.2%, compared to 2.4% in January.

The aggregate relating to energy products showed a rate of change of 15.0% (12.1% in the previous month), while the unprocessed foodstuffs index recorded a year-on-year change of 3.7% (3.4% in January).

By classes of expenditure and compared to the previous month, INE highlights the increases in the year-on-year change rates of the ‘transport’ and ‘restaurants and hotels’ classes, with variations of 8.5% and 5.2%, respectively (6.2% and 3.6% in the previous month).

On the other hand, the year-on-year decreases in ‘communications’ and ‘leisure, recreation and culture’, with variations of 1.4% and 3.0%, respectively (2.6% and 3.2% in the previous month).

For the third consecutive month, all classes registered positive year-on-year variations.

According to INE, the monthly variation in the CPI was 0.4% (0.3 in the previous month and -0.5% in February 2021).

The average change over the last 12 months was 1.8%, compared to 1.5% in January.

The Portuguese Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) registered a year-on-year change of 4.4%, 1.0 percentage point higher than in the previous month and 1.4 percentage points lower than the value estimated by the European Union Statistics Office (Eurostat) for the Euro Zone.

In January, the difference had been 1.7 percentage points, INE noted.

Excluding unprocessed foodstuffs and energy, the HICP in Portugal posted a year-on-year change of 3.4% in February, which was higher than the corresponding rate for the euro area, which was 2.9%.

The HICP recorded a monthly variation of 0.5% (0.3% in the previous month and -0.5% in February 2021) and an average variation over the last 12 months of 1.5% (1.2% in the previous month).