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)
