Inflation increases to 2.1% in April

The year-on-year change in consumer prices was 2.1 per cent in April, according to Statistics Finland.

In March, inflation stood at 1.3 per cent. The increase in the inflation rate was particularly due to the rapid fall in fuel prices during spring 2020.

Due to the fall, the increase in fuel prices from last April to this April was considerably larger than from March to March.

From last April to this April, increases in the prices of petrol, diesel, long-distance train journeys, and cigarettes had the largest upward impacts on the consumer price index.

Decreases in the average interest rates on housing loans and consumer credit and the prices of regular ferry service, beer served in restaurants, and televisions had the largest downward impacts.

From March to April, consumer prices rose by 0.4 per cent, which was partly due to a rise in the prices of pharmaceutical products.

Each mid-month, Statistics Finland's interviewers collect altogether 19,000 prices on nearly 400 commodities from about 2,100 outlets for the Consumer Price Index.

The price data is supplemented with scanner data wherefrom 5 million individual prices are included into calculation. In addition, some 1,000 items of price data are gathered by centralised collection.