The growth of Slovenia's annual inflation in January slowed by 0.9 of a percentage point (pp) from the previous month to 3.3% (chart), statistics office, SURS, data showed on February 6.

In the same month in 2023, the inflation was 10%. The most significant influence on the yearly inflation rate, contributing 0.6 percentage points (pp), was increased prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages, rising by 3.2%.

Contributions of 0.5 pp each were made by the categories of housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels, with a 3.6% increase, and health, witnessing a surge of 9.4%.

Month on month, Slovenia’s consumer prices moved down by 0.6% in January, after dropping 0.5% in December 2023.

The decline in monthly prices was predominantly driven by winter sales in clothing and footwear, leading to an 8.3% decrease and contributing 0.6 pp to the deflation rate. Further, reductions of 0.2 pp each were influenced by more affordable motor fuels (with petrol prices decreasing by 4.7% and diesel prices by 4.5%) and discounted international holiday packages (decreasing by 12%). Noteworthy was the drop in natural gas prices by 9.7%, contributing 0.1 pp to deflation.

Measured with the harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP), the annual growth of consumer prices in January was 3.4%, against inflation of 9.9% in the same month in 2023. On a monthly level HICP moved down 0.6%.

In 2023, the inflation in Slovenia was 7.4% vs. 8.8% in 2022.