Alex Trelinski
SPAIN’S annual inflation rate fell to 2.2% in August- the lowest figure since June 2023 when it stood at 1.9%.
The National Institute of Statistics (INE) provisional figures published on Thursday show that reduced fuel prices were behind the fall along with a drop in food and non-alcoholic drink costs.
Inflation has now seen three consecutive months of decline, standing at 3.6% in May.
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The INE estimates that core inflation, which does not take into account the prices of unprocessed food or energy products, stood at 2.7% year-on-year in August.
That’s 0.1% less than in July and the lowest figure since January 2022, when it was 2.4%
Finance Minister, Carlos Cuerpo, said it was ‘good economic news’ as inflation falls ‘towards the 2% target set by the European Central Bank’.
“The figures demonstrate the effectiveness of the government’s economic measures which are seeing one of the highest growth rates in the euro zone coupled with prices falling and the recovery of purchasing power,” he commented.
“Spain is going in the right direction,” said Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, on social media.
However, the Partido Popular’s finance spokesman, Juan Bravo, regretted that ‘today Spaniards are poorer than a year ago’ due price rises.
