The beginning of summer sales has not ended in significant cuts to inflation, considering that the Index of Consumer Prices (ICP) has hardly dropped a tenth of a point with respect to the previous month to settle around 3.1%. Likewise, the ICP split between Spain and the EU has not come into balance.
On the contrary, the rate has increased nearly one percentage point since the beginning of the year. It is also a favorable figure for the progress of underlying inflation that is excluding manufactured foods and energy products and lowered a tenth to settle around 1.6%.
The ICP?s yearly progression has been weighed down by price wars among mobile telephone companies, which began in July and resulted in a 1.2% drop in prices for the communications conglomerate that the telecoms belong to. Also, household goods posted significant drops, yet the annual rate remains positive at 1.1%. This is around four tenths of a point less than last year.
Clothing and footwear, which reflects the intensity of summer sales the most, has in effect registered a strong drop compares to the same month last year. Prices are 12% less. Still, prices are flat for the year, considering that the sale is more or less the same discount rate as last year.
The transportation group, which includes fuel and oil, has caused consumers to scratch their heads for the past few months. The prices have settled two tenths of a point beneath June rates, but still they are high at 7.7% more than at the beginning of the year. What happened is that the sale and repair of automobiles has shot down the index, because the fuel companies are not accusing the gradual decline in prices which have been carried out in August.
