Credit: STATEC
The annual rate of inflation in Luxembourg has fallen from 0.6% to 0.2% over the past month, according to STATEC.
In May 2020, the national consumer price index, calculated by STATEC, fell by 0.2% compared to the previous month. This decrease has been mainly attributed to the continued drop in the prices of petroleum products and food products.
Indeed, May saw the price of petroleum products fall by 2.8% overall compared to the previous month. This marks the third consecutive month where petroleum prices have declined. The main contributor to this decrease was heating oil prices which fell by 13.0% over one month. Diesel prices (per litre) similarly dropped by 5.3%, whilst petrol prices (per litre) went up 2.7% compared to April.
Meanwhile, food prices fell by 0.4% month-on-month. In particular, the price of fresh fruit (down 2.5%) and vegetables (down 5.9%) and that of meat (down 0.6%) influenced this overall decrease. On the other hand, the price of fresh fish (up 5.7%) and rice (up 0.8%) went up over the last month. In comparison to last year, food prices were up 3.8%.
As for service prices, mobile phone services were 1.2% more expensive in May than the previous month, while hairdressers and beauty salon prices went up 0.7%.
All things considered, the annual rate of inflation now stands at 0.2%, down from 0.6% the previous month. The general index for the month of May expressed in base 100 in 2015 amounted to 105.82 points.
