"This slowdown is partly explained by the base effect resulting from the increase in fuel and food prices, verified in March 2022", explains INE.

The underlying inflation indicator (total index excluding unprocessed food products and energy) registered a variation of 7.0% (8.2% in February).

The change in the index for energy products decreased to -4.4% (1.9% in the previous month), the first negative value since February 2021, and the index for unprocessed food products decelerated to 19.3% ( 20.1% in the previous month).

The monthly variation of the CPI was 1.7% (0.3% in the previous month and 2.5% in March 2022). The average change in the last twelve months was 8.7% (8.6% in February).

The Portuguese Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) showed a year-on-year change of 8.0%, a figure of 0.6 p.p. to that registered in the previous month and higher by 1.1 p.p. to the value estimated by Eurostat for the Euro area (in February, this difference was 0.1 p.p.).

Excluding unprocessed food and energy products, the HICP in Portugal reached a year-on-year change of 8.1% in March (8.0% in February), higher than the corresponding rate for the Euro area (estimated at 7.5%).

The HICP registered a monthly variation of 2.0% (0.4% in the previous month and 2.6% in March 2022) and an average variation of the last twelve months of 9.1% (8.9% in the previous month).