Credit: Statec

The annual rate of inflation in Luxembourg has increased from 1.8% to 2.1% over the past month.
 
Following a monthly decline in January due to the winter sales, the national consumer price index recovered 1.5% in February 2019. By offsetting changes in balances, the index increased by 0.2% compared to the previous month. This change is mainly due to higher prices for petroleum products.
 
In February, the monthly evolution of the general index resulted essentially from the upward impacts of the divisions affected in January by the winter sales, namely clothing and footwear (+18.7% in January), leisure and culture (+2.2%) and furniture, household goods and routine household maintenance (+1.3%).
 
Excluding balances, several increases brought the overall result up compared to the previous month. These include the prices of package holidays (+6.4%) and those of plants and flowers (+5.6%), boosted by Valentine's Day sales.
 
After three months of decline, petroleum product prices rose by 2.6% compared with January 2019. The price of heating oil similarly climbed by 7.0%. Compared to February of the previous year, the prices of the derivatives of the black gold in the basket of the index are 5.6% higher. Food prices were also 2.5% higher: monthly price decreases for fish as well as for fats and oils were thwarted by increases for fruits and non-alcoholic beverages. Finally, February saw a tariff change for the technical control of vehicles, resulting in an average monthly increase of 10.2% in this area. 
 
The annual rate of inflation thus rose from 1.8% in January to 2.1% in February 2019. The underlying annual inflation rate gained 0.1 percentage point and reached 1.9%. The general index for the month of February, expressed in base 100 in 2015, amounted to 104.97 points. The semi-annual average of the index linked to the 1.1.1948 base increased from 863.07 to 863.94 points.