In April 2019 Croatia's consumer price index inched up by 0.7 percent year-on-year, or 0.6 percent month-on-month, the state statistics bureau said in its recent report, confirming analysts' earlier expectations.

This continues the low inflation levels, as the index inched up by less than 1 percent every month over the last five months. By product category, prices of alcohol and tobacco rose the most compared to a year ago, by 4.8 percent, followed by utilities and fuel prices, which went up by 3.9 percent in the same period.

Transport prices also inched up 2.8 percent, due to increased prices of fuel for personal vehicles, which rose 4.6 percent, as well as prices of air transport, which jumped 25.1 percent year-on-year.

On the other hand, this was countered by lower prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages, which dropped by 1.7 percent over the last twelve months, which Raiffeisenbank (RBA) analysts attributed to lower prices of fresh fruit as well as this year’s introduction of lower VAT bracket for a series of food products.

Commenting on the latest figures, RBA analysts said that the prices of energy and food are likely to keep playing a key role in determining consumer prices in the months to come, with fuel prices largely dependent on developments in the world’s oil markets.

Overall, they added, consumer price increases are expected to stay low throughout the rest of the year, with the average monthly inflation rate in 2019 expected to be around 1 percent.

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