The year-on-year rate of change of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) dropped to 8.3% in January, down from 9.6% in December.
According to a quick estimate by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), “based on the information already collected, the year-on-year rate of change of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) fell for the third consecutive month to 8.3% in January 2023, 1.3 percentage points (p.p.) lower than in the previous month.
The underlying inflation indicator (total index excluding unprocessed food and energy products) should have registered a variation of 7.0% in January (7.3% in the previous month).
According to the INE, the main contribution to the deceleration of the CPI was given by the index for energy products, “with the respective year-on-year rate of change also estimated to have decreased for the third consecutive time, to 6.8%,” down from 20.8% in the previous month, highlighting the decrease in electricity prices.
Conversely, the index for unprocessed food products “accelerated to a change of 18.5%” from 17.6% in December.
If this quick estimate by INE is confirmed – definitive data regarding the January CPI will be released on February 10 – it will be the fourth decline in inflation in a year and a half, after August, November and December had recorded the only declines in the year-on-year variation of the CPI since June 2021.
In the month of October, the 10.1% inflation rate was the highest since May 1992.
As for the Portuguese Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP), it should have registered a year-on-year variation of 8.6% in the month under analysis, which compares with 9.8% in the previous month.
