Alejandra Olcese
Updated Thursday, February 29, 2024-09:00
Forecasts Spain will be the second country in the euro zone that corrects its inflation the least in 2024
Taxes The VAT on the electricity bill threatens to rise to 21% in March and the Government has no plans to avoid it
February
ended with a
year-on-year inflation of 2.8%
, which means, on the bad side, that prices are 2.8% higher today than a year ago;
but it implies, for the good, being below 3% for the first time in six months and a moderation compared to January, when the interannual rate stood at 3.4%.
According to the data released this Thursday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) and which will have to be confirmed in mid-March,
underlying inflation
- which analyzes the price of all the goods and services we consume with the exception of fresh food and energy products as they are volatile - also fell
to 3.4%
(from 3.6% in January), which is its lowest level in the last two years.
The latter is used as an indicator of the inflation towards which the economy tends in the medium term, which underlies specific market movements, hence its name.
That the underlying is higher than the general shows that fresh food and energy are not the main responsible for inflation.
On the contrary, in the rest of the categories it is mainly
processed foods
that are pulling the index.
The
Ministry of Economy
has explained, upon learning of the data, that the decrease in inflation is due "to the downward evolution of electricity prices
and
the stability in food prices", something that the INE has confirmed. .
This organization has also indicated that the price of
fuel
rose this month, unlike what happened in February 2023.
In
monthly
terms , if the prices are compared with those recorded in January, Spaniards will have experienced that their purchases have cost
0.3% more in February than last month
.
The core, for its part, rose 0.5% in one month.
For the year as a whole, experts expect inflation to remain
stable at around 3%
- some months it will be somewhat above and others somewhat below - which would leave the average for the year at that figure, very similar to that recorded in 2024. It is not an alarming price increase but it is above the 2% threshold that the
European Central Bank (ECB)
considers healthy and which it seeks to reach through a restrictive monetary policy.
Although last year Spain was one of the Eurozone countries with the most controlled inflation rate, it is now one of the
large euro economies
with a
sharper price rise
compared to the previous year.
In fact, experts predict that this year Spain will be the country that corrects its inflation the least, as EL MUNDO reported.
This is because our control of the CPI was achieved earlier, so now the rest of the countries are experiencing a decline that we already experienced last year;
to the
withdrawal of anti-inflationary measures
(in January the tax reductions on electricity taxes decreased and the reduction in VAT on electricity is expected to end at the end of March);
to the delay in the execution of European funds, which is delaying the positive impact on the economy;
and to the
wage increases
that are being registered in the country, now higher than those of prices.