Consumer Price Index decreases in July in Georgia

Georgia’s national statistics office (Geostat) reports that last month, the Consumer Price Index decreased by 0.02 percent compared to the previous month, while the annual inflation rate amounted to 4.6 %.

The agency says that the prices in the group of food and non-alcoholic beverages increased by 1.2%, contributing 0.37 percentage points to the overall monthly inflation rate.

In particular, the prices increased for the following sub-groups:

• Milk, cheese, eggs - 3.1% increase
• Fruit and grapes - 7.1 % increase
• Sugar, jam, honey, chocolate and confectionery – 4.3% increase
• Meat -1%
• Fish – 1.9% increase

However, the prices decreased for vegetables by 8.1% and fruit – 2%.

As for transport, the prices went up by 1.8 percent, contributing 0.22 % to the overall monthly inflation rate. The prices in the group increased for the operation of personal transport equipment – 1.5%, purchase of vehicles -3.3% and transport services -2.0 percent.

The prices in restaurants and hotels increased by 3.4% while prices for the miscellaneous goods and services increased by 1.9%.

As for the annual inflation rate was mainly influenced by price changes for the following groups:

• Food and non-alcoholic beverages – 7.9% increase
• Alcoholic beverages and tobacco- 13.7 % increase
• Transport - 3.9 % increase
• Recreation and culture – prices went up by 5.6%
• Education – 2.6%
• Health – 3.5% increase in prices

To note, June 2019 the Consumer Price Index decreased by 1.0 percent compared to the previous month, and the annual inflation rate amounted to 4.3 percent while on May 2019 the CPI increased by 0.5 percent compared to April and the annual inflation rate amounted to 4.7%.

The highest annual inflation rate over the past two years was measured at 7.1%, in June 2017, according to the GeoStat data.

The target inflation rate set by the National Bank of Georgia is 3% for 2019-2021.