Spanish inflation slows down and closes 2022 at 5.7%

A customer prepares to pay at the Hermanos Cadenas grocery store in a market in Madrid, Spain, August 12, 2022. REUTERS/Susana Vera

MADRID, Jan 13 (Reuters) – Spanish inflation slowed down to close 2022 at 5.7% thanks to the lower rise in energy prices, the National Statistics Institute reported on Friday, a figure slightly below the 5 .8% from two weeks ago.

The INE, as the institute is known, attributed the drop in inflation to cheaper heating oil and the lower rise in electricity and fuel prices.

Analysts polled by Reuters estimated inflation for 2022 at 5.8%.

Although the general price index has fallen rapidly, from its peak of 10.8% in July, core inflation in 2022, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, rose to 7.0% from 6.3 % of the period ending in November.

“We hope that underlying inflation starts to come down as soon as possible,” Economy Minister Nadia Calviño said on RNE radio station. “For now, it’s good news that headline inflation has dropped 5 points in 5 months,” she added.

Inflation harmonized with the European Union in 2022 was 5.5%, 0.1 percentage points less than the previous INE estimate, from two weeks ago.

The harmonized rate in Spain was the lowest in the European Union in November, according to Eurostat data.

(Marta Serafinko and Emma Pinedo, edited in Spanish by Flora Gómez)

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