House prices and food were by far the biggest contributors to annual inflation rates in March with housing at 9.75 per cent and food at 8.10 percent, official data published on Monday shows.

As expected, the lowest annual inflation rates were registered in water, electricity, gas and fuels, where prices have been unchanged, followed by clothing and footwear 0.40 per cent.

In March, the annual rate of inflation as measured by the RPI was 4.43 per cent, up from the 4.22 per cent in February 2022. The 12-month moving average rate for March stood at 2.46 per cent.

In March alone, the largest upward impact on annual inflation was registered in the Food Index (+1.74 percentage points), largely due to higher prices of vegetables. The second and third largest impacts were measured in the housing index (+0.77percentage points) and the transport and communication Index (+0.43 percentage points), mainly on account of higher prices of house maintenance services and motor vehicles respectively, the NSO said.

On the other hand, no downward impacts on annual inflation were registered for the month of March.

In March, the housing index registered the highest annual inflation rate of 9.75 per cent , of which tent registered an annual rate of 3.45 per cent, Materials for house maintenance registered an annual rate of 10.74 per cent and services for house maintenance registered an annual rate of 10.83 per cent.