FX.co ★ Estonia Inflation Accelerates Further

Estonia's consumer price inflation accelerated for a third month in a row in April, driven mainly by higher utility costs, data from Statistics Estonia showed on Friday.

The consumer price index increased 18.8 percent year-on-year in April, following a 15.2 percent rise in March. Inflation was 1.9 percent a year ago.

Cost of goods grew 14.4 percent annually and that of services gained 27.8 percent in April.

"Compared to April 2021, the consumer price index was affected the most by housing-related price changes, which contributed over 40 percent of the total rise in the index," Viktoria Trasanov, leading analyst at Statistics Estonia, said.

"In April, the automatic compensation scheme for electricity, electricity network fees, district heating, pipeline gas and gas network fees came to an end."

Price changes of food and non-alcoholic beverages and the price changes of transport both accounted for nearly a fifth of the total increase, Statistics Estonia said.

Housing costs increased 59.7 percent yearly in April and prices for transport rose 24.2 percent. Prices for food and non-alcoholic beverages, and education grew by 14.6 percent and 19.8 percent, respectively.

On a monthly basis, consumer prices rose 3.6 percent in April, following a 2.7 percent growth in the prior month.