Consumer prices in Croatia in May 2018 increased by 1.9 percent year-on-year, which represents the highest inflation rate since mid-2013, the state statistics bureau reported on Friday.

The rise is an increase from last months’s 1.3 percent growth year-on-year, and is the largest single increase since August 2013.

“The prices of goods and services for personal consumption, measured via consumer price index, have continued to grow 18th month in a row, with May posting the largest increase since August 2013,” Raiffeisenbank Austria (RBA) analysts said in their comment on the report.

By sector, prices in May 2018 compared to May 2017 increased the most in the transport sector, by 4.1 percent, with fuel prices jumping 8.5 percent. These were followed by prices of rent and utilities, which grew by 3.4 percent, while prices in hotels and restaurants grew by 3 percent.

Prices of alcoholic beverages and tobacco also rose by 2.9 percent year-on-year, with food and non-alcoholic drinks prices inching up 1.5 percent. Within the food category, the largest increase was in prices of vegetables, which grew by 5.8 percent, while fruit prices were up 5.5 percent.

Compared to April, consumer prices rose 0.4 percent, and in the first five months of 2018 taken as a whole, consumer prices rose by 1.2 percent compared to the same period in 2017.

“We expect the year-on-year rise in consumer prices to continue, due to growing prices of food and energy, as well stronger domestic demand, which are likely to combine and push prices up. Average year-on-year inflation rate in 2018 we expect to be around 1.4 percent, up from 1.1 percent in 2017,” RBA analysts said.

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