Increased Prices Affect Inflation Rate

In October, the monthly inflation rate amounted to 0.8%. Compared to the same period of the previous year, the Consumer Price Index change ( CPI - annual inflation rate) posted a 6.4% increase.

The data was presented by the National Statistics Office of Georgia (Geostat), which says that the monthly inflation rate was mainly influenced by price changes for food and non-alcoholic beverages. In October, prices for said items increased 1.6 % and contributed 0.46 percentage points to the overall CPI change.

Geostat says that prices were comparably higher for the following subgroups: vegetables (11.5 %), milk, cheese and eggs (3.2 %), oils and fats (1.1 %). Meanwhile, prices for fruit and grapes went down (-3.0 %).

The prices also went up for clothing and footwear. In this group, a 6.5% increase in prices was observed, which had an upward effect of 0.19 percentage points on monthly inflation. Prices increased both for footwear (12.0 %) and clothing (3.6 %).

Annual inflation was mainly influenced by price changes for the following groups:

Food and non-alcoholic beverages - prices increased 7.4%, contributing 2.21 percentage points to the annual inflation.

Transport - prices in the group increased 14.7%, contributing 1.83 percentage points to the annual inflation.

Alcoholic beverages and tobacco - prices increased 17.6%, with a relevant contribution of 1.13 percentage points to the overall index growth

Health - prices were up 5.8%, which resulted in a 0.5 percentage point contribution to the overall annual inflation.

Thea Morrison