Friday. 29.03.2024

The prices of energy, rents and communications continue to bring bad news to Finnish homes.

Last month, consumer prices in Finland were raised most by increases in the prices of cigarettes, electricity, rents and wireless telephone services from one year ago. According to Statistics Finland, in November the annual inflation rate was 0.7%.

However, not all consumer prices are higher than one year ago. The rising trend from one year back was curbed most by reductions in the prices of average interest rate on housing loans, mobile phones, diesel and petrol. From October to November the month-on-month change of consumer prices was -0.1 per cent, which was caused by international flights being cheaper, for example.

These data are based on Statistics Finland's interviews to collect 44,000 prices on nearly 470 commodities from approximately 2,700 outlets for the Consumer Price Index. Price data is supplemented with scanner data including around 3 million food prices. In addition, some 1,000 items of price data are gathered by centralised collection.

Inflation-squareSource: Statistics Finland

Inflation 1% in the euro area

According to the preliminary data on the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices, the rate of inflation in the euro area was 1% in November. In October, it was 0.7 per cent. The corresponding figure for Finland was 0.8 per cent in November.

The Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices does not include owner-occupancy, games of chance, interests on consumption and other credits, fire insurance on owner-occupied dwellings, the vehicle tax or fishing and hunting fees. The consumption items included in the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices, as well as the rules governing its compilation, have been defined in EU regulations.

Rents, electricity, tobacco and phone services raised prices in November