By the end of December 2023, the Slovenian CPI growth has decelerated to 4.2% YoY, while also recording a decrease of 0.5% on an MoM level. Furthermore, during the entirety of 2023, the average annual inflation in Slovenia amounted to 7.4%.
The Slovenian Statistical Office, SURS, has recently released its latest report on the consumer price indices (CPI), for the month of December 2023. According to the report, the Slovenian CPI grew by 4.2% YoY during December, as compared to 10.3% in the same month last year. This would mean that the CPI growth has decelerated significantly, but still remains above the historical target of 2 to 2.5% percent.
The average inflation in 2023 meanwhile, amounted to 7.4%, again showing that despite the deceleration, the CPI numbers were still quite high and above the desired levels. On the other hand, on the MoM basis in December, the CPI decreased by 0.5%, marking the 2nd month in a row that the CPI recorded a MoM decrease.
Slovenian CPI change (January 2011 – December 2023, YoY, %)
Source: Slovenian Statistical Office, InterCapital Research
Moving on to the drivers of inflation, on a YoY basis, prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages grew by 4.6%, leading to a 0.8 p.p. contribution to the overall inflation. Price increases in recreation and culture, at 6.3%, impacted the overall inflation by 0.6 p.p. Finally, higher prices in alcoholic beverages and tobacco (+9.4% YoY), health (+8.5% YoY), restaurants and hotels (+7.9% YoY), and miscellaneous goods and services (+6.2% YoY) each added 0.5 p.p. to the annual inflation growth.
Meanwhile, on a monthly basis, the inflation decreased by the aforementioned 0.5%. The primary drivers of this deflation were the lower prices of petroleum products (-8% for diesel, -7.6% for liquid fuels, and -5.3% for petrol), which contributed 0.4 p.p. to the monthly deflation rate. Additional price decreases were recorded by refuse collection (-8.1% MoM), package holidays (-3.1% MoM), and purchase of vehicles (-0.9%), as well as all other price drops, which each contributed 0.1 p.p. to the monthly deflation rate.
On the other hand, prices in the health category (+2.9% MoM) contributed 0.2 p.p. to the overall MoM inflation, followed by 0.7% higher prices of furnishings, household equipment, and routine maintenance, which contributed 0.1 p.p. to the overall MoM inflation.
In terms of the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP), Slovenia recorded a 3.8% increase YoY, and a 0.6% decrease MoM in December. As compared to other countries, Slovenia did record elevated inflation as compared to most EU countries, but it was still below countries like Slovakia (+6.6% YoY), Austria (+5.7% YoY), Croatia (+5.4% YoY), and even France (+4.1% YoY), while it was tied with Germany. On the MoM basis however, it has recorded one of the largest decreases, only surpassed by Cyprus (-1.2% MoM), Portugal (-0.8% MoM), and Latvia (-0.6% MoM).
HICP comparison between select EU countries (December 2023, YoY, %)
Source: Eurostat, InterCapital Research
