The rate of inflation in March rose marginally in March when compared to the previous month, in stark contrast to the average rate across the eurozone, which was almost halved.
Malta was the only EU member state to register an increase in the rate of inflation last month when compared to February, statistics released on Friday show.
The annual rate of inflation stood at 1.2 per cent in March and 1.1 per cent in February. By contrast, the average rate of inflation across the eurozone plummeted to 0.7 per cent when compared to 1.2 per cent the prior month.
That anomaly may be due to the way in which the data was collected. Locally, the National Statistics Office gathers data at around the middle of the calendar month, before many price changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to have been registered.
Inflation rates across EU member states in March. Photo: Eurostat“As a result, the impact of COVID-19 on the harmonised index of consumer prices for March is likely to be minimal,” the NSO cautioned in its monthly release.
Malta registered its first COVID-19 case on March 7 but businesses continued to operate beyond that date. Restaurants and cafes were closed on March 18 and all other non-essential businesses and services were halted on March 23.
The country’s rate of inflation in March was especially affected by a rise in prices of milk, fuels and restaurant and café services. Prices of clothing and furniture declined slightly, adding downward pressure to the rate of inflation.
Many other EU countries experienced a very different situation. Spain, Italy, Cyprus and Portugal all registered low rates of just 0.1 per cent. Hungary and Poland stood on the opposite end of the scale, with inflation rates of 3.9 per cent that month. Even in those countries, however, rates were lower than in February.
The annual rate of inflation measures the change of the harmonised indices of consumer prices (HICP) between a month and the same month of the previous year. The HICP is made up of a representative basket of goods and services and is calculated based on EU-wide rules.
Malta’s HICP increased at a marginally lower rate than that of the eurozone (1.1 per cent vs 1.2 per cent). When energy and unprocessed food is excluded from that calculation, the gap between Malta and the eurozone was slightly wider (1 per cent vs 1.3 per cent).