Cyprus harmonised inflation drops below 1% in March

The EU-harmonised consumer price inflation rate dropped to just 0.9% in March, having peaked at 5.3% last July.
The main reason for the sharp fall over the year earlier has been falling oil prices. Prices of “housing, water, electricity and gas” fell in March by 8.7% over the same month of the previous year, while prices of transport fell by 9.6%.
However, prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages saw a fairly sharp rise, of 9.1% compared with the same period of 2008 and 1.4% compared with the previous month.
The annual consumer price inflation rate in the March was 1.4%.
Fiona Mullen
www.sapientaeconomics.com