Ljubljana, 07 February (STA) - Slovenia's annual inflation edged down to 1.5% in January. Inflation was mainly fuelled by higher prices of food and higher prices of electricity, gas and other fuels. At the monthly level, prices dropped 0.8%, the Statistics Office reported on Wednesday.
In January, annual inflation was 0.2 percentage points lower than in December, while it was 0.2 points higher than in January 2017.
In the last 12 months, prices of goods went up by 1.4% and the prices of services by 1.7%. Prices of non-durable goods increased by 2.4% and prices of semi-durable goods were up by 0.5%. Prices of durable goods dropped by 1.7%.
Prices of food, which was 3% dearer, had the biggest upward impact on inflation (0.5 pp), with 4% higher prices of electricity, gas and other fuels contributing 0.3 percentage points.
Fruit prices increased by 11.6%, meat prices were up by 7.7%, and the prices of milk, cheese and eggs were up by 3.2%. Prices of vegetables decreased by 8%.
On the other hand, lower prices of cars (-3.4%) pushed inflation down 0.2 points, and lower prices of mobile telephony (-1.9%) added a negative 0.1 points.
At the monthly level, seasonal sales of clothes and footwear were the main driver of deflation. Lower prices of clothes added 0.9 points and lower prices of footwear 0.1 points to the 0.8% drop in prices in January over December.
Clothes for children went down 17.7%, for women decreased by 17.1% and for men by 15.0%. Footwear was 7.5% cheaper.
Lower prices of package holidays (-5.3%) and lower prices of sports equipment (-13.3%) pushed the consumer price index down a further 0.2 and 0.1 points, respectively.
Meanwhile, higher prices of food (by 0.2 points), higher prices of electricity, gas and other fuels (0.1 pp), higher prices of services in hospitality (0.1 pp), and other price increases (0.1 pp) offset the monthly deflation somewhat.
Measured with the harmonised index of consumer prices, an EU mettle, Slovenia's annual inflation stood at 1.7%, while prices dropped by 0.6% at the monthly level.