06 January 2023
Eurostat has today (06 January 2023) published flash estimates of inflation from the EU Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) for the Eurozone for December 2022, including estimates for Ireland which have been compiled by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
Commenting on the data published today, Anthony Dawson, Statistician in the Prices Division, said: “The latest flash estimate of the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP), compiled by the CSO, indicates that prices for consumer goods and services in Ireland are estimated to have increased by 8.2% in the past year. The corresponding rate for the Eurozone published by Eurostat today was 9.2%. These flash estimates are subject to revision when the final HICP results are published next month (See Editor’s Note below).
Six of the 19 Eurozone countries had a lower annual increase than the estimate of 8.2% for Ireland while 12 countries had higher rates. Latvia had the highest estimated annual inflation at 20.7% while Spain had the lowest at 5.6%.
Looking at the components of the flash HICP in Ireland for December 2022, Energy prices are estimated to have decreased by 6.5% in the month but are up 34.3% since December 2021. For the Eurozone overall, energy prices were down 6.5% in the month but rose by 25.7% on an annual basis."
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is the official measure of inflation for Ireland and is published monthly by the CSO. The CPI release for December 2022 will be published on 17 January 2023 and the final results of the HICP for Ireland for December 2022 will be published as part of the CPI release. The HICP is an index of consumer prices that has been harmonised to allow comparisons across Eurozone countries. While the final HICP results for the Eurozone are usually published by Eurostat around the middle of the month following the reference month, flash estimates are issued around the end of each reference month.
This is the link to the December 2022 Eurozone flash HICP estimates published by Eurostat this morning: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/2995521/15725146/2-06012023-AP-EN.pdf/885ac2bb-b676-0f0d-b8b1-dc78f2b34735?version=1.0&t=1672944714276
The flash estimates of HICP have been published for some countries within the Eurozone by Eurostat each month since January 2019. Ireland has been included in the publication of the country breakdowns of the flash estimates process since November 2019.
Eurostat are expected to publish final HICP results for the Eurozone for December 2022 at 10am on 18 January 2023.
Please note that these flash HICP estimates are subject to revision when the final results are published. For 22 of the 37 months since November 2019 when the CSO’s flash estimate has been published by Eurostat, there was no difference between Ireland’s flash estimate and final result of the HICP. There was a difference of 0.1 percentage points for 13 of the months while one month in 2020 had a difference of 0.2 percentage points and another had a difference of 0.3 percentage points.
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