Inflation continued to increase in December, with fresh NSO data showing that the Retail Price Index reached 2.59 per cent, up from the 2.38 per cent in November 2021. The 12-month moving average rate for December stood at 1.50 per cent (Table 2).
Yet again, in the last month of the year, the largest upward impact on annual inflation was registered in the Food Index (+1.06 percentage points), largely due to higher prices of vegetables. The second and third largest impacts were measured in the Transport and communication Index (+0.28 percentage points) and the Other goods and services Index (+0.26 percentage points), mainly
on account of higher prices of motor vehicles and pet food respectively. On the other hand, no downward impacts on annual inflation were registered for the month of December.
Data published last week by Eurostat has shown that despite the recent increase in cost of living in Malta, the island was still experiencing the lowest rate of inflation across the European Union.
