Inflation reaches 6.1% in February after two months of rise

Prices marked their highest data in February since November 2022, with an inflation rate two tenths higher than in January, reaching 6.2%. According to the data released this Tuesday by the INE, it is due to the rise in electricity and food in February compared to the same month in 2022. In addition, underlying inflation -which does not take into account energy or fresh food- continued shooting up for another month, reaching 7.7%, its all-time record.

At the moment, the Government is not considering taking more measures than the VAT reductions on certain products that were adopted since January 1. Yesterday, the economic vice president Nadia Calviño assured during her visit to the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that the fiscal measures would have her “journey” and that prices could not be expected to drop overnight.

In addition, he indicated that the European Central Bank (ECB) is the one who has the “European competence” in terms of inflation to take the necessary measures to appease this rate.

There are two consecutive months of rising inflation, which reached its maximum peak last July (10.8%) and from that moment began to drop until January, when it rose to 5.9% from 5.7% in December and in February it has risen another two tenths again.

The Executive continues to emphasize that Spanish inflation is the lowest in the European Union thanks to the measures adopted during these months. And in the general rate the data is true, the European average reached 8.6% in January compared to 5.9% in Spain. However, the underlying rate continues to exceed the European average by more than two points, which closed January -the latest data available- at 5.3%.

In monthly terms (February over January), the CPI registered an increase of 1%, its biggest monthly rise since last June, when it rose 1.9%.