Bulgaria continues to be one of the countries with the lowest inflation rate within the EU with inflation rate in March of 1.7%, which is the third lowest after Sweden (1.1%) and Greece (1.4%).On the other side, the highest inflation rate was indicated in Hungary (5.5%), Estonia (4.7%) and the Czech Republic (4.2%).
According to the Eurostat data, for March the annual inflation in the European Union member states, compared to February 2012, fell in fourteen countries, remained stable in four and rose in eight.The lowest 12-month averages up to March 2012 were registered in Sweden (1.3%), Ireland (1.4%) and Slovenia (2.1%), and the highest in Estonia (4.9%), Romania (4.6%) and Hungary (4.3%).The bloc’s annual inflation was 2.9% in March 2012, unchanged compared with February. A year earlier the rate was 3.1%. Monthly inflation was 1.1% in March 2012.The annual inflation in the Euro Area was 2.7% in March 2012, unchanged compared with February 2012.
From 1991 until 2010, the average inflation rate in Euro Area was 2.24 percent reaching an historical high of 5.00 percent in July of 1991 and a record low of -0.70 percent in July of 2009. Inflation rate refers to a general rise in prices measured against a standard level of purchasing power. The most well known measures of Inflation are the CPI which measures consumer prices, and the GDP deflator, which measures inflation in the whole of the domestic economy.
Another interesting statistics is related to the main components with the highest annual rates in March 2012 which were transport (4.6%), alcohol & tobacco (4.4%) and housing (4.0%), while the lowest annual rates were observed for communications (-2.8%), recreation & culture (0.7%) and education (0.9%).
