Estonia's 2013 Inflation Clocked at 2.8%
The nation's consumer price index was up by 2.8 percent in 2013 compared with the previous year's average, Statistics Estonia announced today, with electricity named as the main driver of overall price growth.
Over the past 15 years, the annual CPI growth has come in below 3 percent on only two other occasions: in 2003, when it was 1.3 percent, and in the crisis year of 2009, when the country saw a 0.1 percent deflation, the agency said. In 2004 and 2010, the growth was 3 percent.
A 28.7 percent jump in the average price of electricity supplied to households - a factor of the market deregulation that kicked in at the beginning of last year - accounted for two-thirds of the total 2013 increase.
The 4.9 percent rise in food prices and the 3.5 percent drop in transport prices also played a large role in shaping the year's CPI outcome.
Motor fuel was 3.7 percent cheaper than in 2012.
Average price growth from 2012 to 2013 by commodity group, in percent*:
Food and non-alcoholic beverages: 4.1
Alcoholic beverages and tobacco: 5.1
Clothing and footwear: 4.3
Housing: 8.8
Household goods: 1.0
Health: 6.0
Transport: -3.5
Communications: -9.8
Recreation and culture: 1.9
Education: -3.2
Hotels, cafés and restaurants: 6.5
Miscellaneous goods and services: 2.0
*Source: Statistics Estonia