Fuel prices soared in March and caused an aggressive acceleration in inflation, up to 2.7%. At issue is an increase of 0.6 percentage points (pp) compared to February.
According to preliminary data from INE, underlying inflation (excluding unprocessed food energy products) in the Portuguese economy stood at a year-on-year increase of 2.0% (0.1 pp more than in the previous month).
At the same time, there were increases of 5.8% in energy products (-2.2% in February) and 6.4% in unprocessed food products (6.7% in the previous month).
From February to March alone (monthly variation), the price increase was 2.0%, well above the 0.1% increase observed a month earlier (1.4% in March last year).
The Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HIPC) rose 2.7% year-on-year (2.1% in February).
The definitive data should be known on April 13th.
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