The increase in prices in Portugal slowed significantly in March. The National Statistics Institute (INE) estimated on 31 March that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) this month rose by 7.4% compared with the same month last year.

If these figures are confirmed, March was the fifth consecutive month of slowing inflation, with a deceleration of 0.8 percentage points. In February, the year-on-year change in the CPI had been 8.2%, down 0.2 percentage points on January, according to INE.

"This can be explained by the base effect resulting from the increase in fuel and food prices, which occurred in March 2022″, justifies the institute. In other words, the drop should be seen in light of the big price hike that occurred in March last year, right after Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, which means that inflation has probably slowed down because the comparison is with an atypical month of the previous year.

These figures come a day after Spain's INE revealed that year-on-year inflation in the neighbouring country, which slowed to 3.3% in March, a significant drop of 2.7 percentage points compared to the first month of the year. In Germany, the inflation also slowed significantly to 7.8%, according to the estimate revealed on Thursday.