When compared to May 2019, consumer prices in Latvia declined by 0.9%, putting the country among 14 European Union member states where deflation was found in this period of time, according to information published by Eurostat.
Identical deflation to Latvia’s was observed in Spain. Deflation was higher in Estonia (-1.8%), Luxembourg (-1.6%), as well as Cyprus and Slovenia (-1.4% in both).
Deflation was also found in Ireland (-0.8%), Greece and Croatia (-0.7% in both), Portugal (-0.6%), Italy (-0.3%), Belgium and Denmark (-0.2% in both), as well as Finland (-0.1%).
Inflation, meanwhile, was observed in 13 EU member states, of which the highest inflation was found in Poland (+3.4%), the Czech Republic (+3.1%), Hungary (+2.2%), Slovakia (+2.1%), Romania (+1.8%) and the Netherlands (+1.1%). Then came Bulgaria (+1%), Malta (+0.9%), Austria (+0.6%), Germany (+0.5%), France (+0.4%), Lithuania (+0.2%) and Sweden (+0.1%).
The average inflation was 0.6% in the EU and 0.1% in Eurozone in May.
When compared to April, consumer prices declined by 0.3% in Latvia, by 0.6% in Estonia and by 0.5% in Lithuania. The highest monthly deflation was observed in Austria (-0.9%). The highest monthly inflation was observed in Malta (+1.2%). (BNN/Business World Magazine)