Malta: Food prices drive inflation above 7.5%

In September 2022, the annual rate of inflation as measured by the RPI was 7.52 per cent, up from the 6.98 per cent
in August 2022, the NSO said today. The 12-month moving average rate for September stood at 4.93 per cent. As per last months, the largest upward impact on annual inflation was measured in the Food Index (+2.54 percentage points). Within the food sector, inflation was driven upwards largely due to higher prices of take-aways.

The second and third largest impacts were measured in the Housing Index (+1.29 percentage points) and the Transport and communication Index (+1.21 percentage points), mainly on account of higher prices of tiles and cars respectively. In September, the Housing Index registered the highest annual inflation rate of 16.39 per cent, of which Rent registered an annual rate of 6.38 per cent, Materials for house maintenance registered an annual rate of 18.15 per cent and Services for house maintenance registered an annual rate of 17.84 per cent.

The Water, electricity, gas and fuels Index registered the lowest annual inflation rate of 0.00 per cent, since the prices of
all subcomponents remained unchanged.