Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, estimates in a flash published on Friday 6 January that the annual inflation rate, calculated in terms of the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP), will have fallen slightly in the euro area in December 2022 to 9.2%. This rate was 10.1% in November 2022 and had peaked at 10.6% in October 2022 in the euro area.
This slight decline, observed for the second consecutive month in the euro area, if the estimates are confirmed, would be linked to a decline in the main component of the inflation wave observed in 2022: energy. An ‘energy’ component was estimated at 25.7% in December 2022, compared with 34.9% in November 2022 and 41.5% in October 2022. Eurostat estimates that the ‘energy’ component saw in December 2022 its highest inflation rate for a month of December.
However, this decline is not yet noticeable for the other components of inflation. Thus, the annual rates for the groups ‘food, tobacco, alcohol’ (13.8%), except for its sub-section ‘unprocessed food’ (12.0%), ‘industrial goods excluding energy’ (6.4%e) and services (4.4%e), were still increasing in December, according to Eurostat estimates.
Disparities between Member States also remain high: for example, the annual inflation rate for Latvia is estimated at 20.7%, for Lithuania at 20.0%, while the lowest estimates are for Spain (5.6%), Luxembourg (6.2%) and France (6.7%). In Belgium the annual HICP inflation rate is estimated at 10.2%, compared to 10.5% in November.
More info: https://aeur.eu/f/4t4 (Original version in French by Émilie Vanderhulst)