February 21 (SeeNews) - Croatia's consumer price inflation accelerated to 2% year-on-year in January from 1.4% in December, coming ahead of the projections of analysts at Austria-based Erste banking group, Erste said on Friday.
Erste expected that consumer prices will rise by an annual 1.6% in January, the group said in an instant comment after Croatia's statistical office published the inflation data earlier on Friday.
"CPI entered 2020 on a stronger foot, with higher food prices being main reason for accelerated footprint," Erste said.
"Going forward, we see demand-side pressures picking up modestly amid strong consumption profile, while supply side remains mostly sensitive to food and energy prices developments," it added.
On a monthly comparison basis, Croatia's consumer price index (CPI) decreased by 0.3% in January, after dropping by 0.1% in December, with the most pronounced downside pressures coming from lower clothing and footwear prices amid peak of sales season (down 12.8%), the bank analysts noted.
Higher monthly food and transport prices, on the other hand, worked in the opposite direction.
In annual terms, the prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages, which have the biggest weight of 27.90% in the consumer basket, rose by 3.4% in January, after adding 2.1% in December, the statistical office said.
The prices of housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuel prices (with 16.22% weight in the basket), went up by 1.6% on the year in January, following an increase by 2% in the prior month.
Croatia's average consumer price inflation slowed to 0.8% in 2019, from 1.5% in 2018 and 1.1% in 2017.