Year-on-year, cost eased for food & non-alcoholic beverages (1.8 percent compared to 2.5 percent in June), namely fish & seafood, oil & fats and fruits; transport (5.9 percent compared to 6.1 percent), mostly due to air transportation and fuels & lubricants and health (0.1 percent compared to 0.2 percent). Also, prices of recreation & culture dropped (-0.6 percent compared to 0.6 percent). On the other hand, cost increased faster for housing & utilities (3.7 percent compared to 2.6 percent); restaurants & hotels (2.0 percent compared to 1.7 percent); clothing & footwear (1.0 percent compared to 0.9 percent); furnishings (0.3 percent compared to 0.1 percent); education (0.8 percent compared to 0.7 percent) and communications (2.7 percent compared to 2.2 percent). Additionally, inflation was steady for miscellaneous goods & services (0.9 percent).
Annual core inflation, which excludes volatile items such as food and energy, rose 0.9 percent in July, after a 1.0 percent gain in June.
On a monthly basis, consumer prices decreased 0.7 percent, in line with the preliminary figure and the same as market consensus. Negative contributions came mostly from clothing and footwear (-12.6 percent), food and non-alcoholic beverages (-0.7 percent), furnishings (-0.8 percent) and transport (-0.2 percent).
The harmonized index of consumer prices went up 2.3 percent year-on-year, unchanged from June and declined 1.2 percent from the previous month.