UPDATE 1-Portugal's March inflation slows down to 7.4%

(Adds food, energy prices, context) LISBON, March 31 (Reuters) - Portuguese consumer prices rose 7.4% year-on-year in March, slowing significantly after an 8.2% increase in February in the fifth straight month of easing inflation, flash data released by the National Statistics Institute (INE) showed on Friday. Core inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, clocked 7.0% year-on-year, down from a reading of 7.2% in February.

The decline in the inflation rate was driven by lower energy prices, which came at a negative 4.4% when compared with March 2022, when energy prices soared following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Prices of unprocessed food products surged 19.3% year-on-year in March, slowing down slightly from 20.1% the previous month. To help curb stubbornly high food prices that are hitting households hard, the government announced on Monday a list of 44 essential goods, including milk, bread, rice, tomatoes, and some types of meat and fish, whose value added tax of 6% will be temporarily removed.

Inflation has been slowly cooling off after peaking at 10.1% in October, the fastest pace of consumer price rises in more than three decades. On a monthly basis, consumer prices rose 1.7%, the INE said.
(Reporting by Patricia Vicente Rua and Gdansk Newsroom; Editing by Andrei Khalip)

Messaging: patricia.rua.reuters.com@reuters.net))

Reuters

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