Croatia's consumer price index rose by 2.0 percent year-on-year in January 2020, the state statistics bureau said on Friday. The year-on-year rise was mainly attributed to increased transport prices (4.9 percent), resulting from higher prices of fuel, which bounced back in 2019 from a considerable drop in prices of Brent crude oil at the end of 2018.

Compared with January 2019, prices of food and soft drinks increased by 3.4 percent, with prices of meat going up by 8.6 percent and those of fruit by 11.7 percent. Prices of housing, water, electricity, and gas were 1.6 percent higher, and those of hotel and restaurant services were up 2.7 percent.

Year-on-year, consumer prices inched up in all other categories of products except for recreation and culture, which recorded a decrease of 0.4 percent.

Excluding energy, consumer prices increased 1.6 percent overall, and without energy and food, the prices were 0.7 percent higher.