The National Statistics Institute (INS) announced on Wednesday that inflation slowed to 5.7% in February from 6% in January.
INS attributed the decline to slower price increases in several key categories.
In February 2025, food prices rose by 7%. This compares to 7.1% in January 2025. Similarly, clothing and footwear prices rose by 8.6% (down from 9.7% in January), health services by 4% (down from 9.1%), and housing and household energy by 3.8% (down from 4.1%).
The Institute explained that significant increases in the prices of lamb (21.4%), fresh vegetables (18.7%), dried fruits (14.2%), fresh fish (13.4%) and poultry (10.5%) contributed to the 7% annual increase in food prices, calculated on a year-on-year basis (compared to February 2024).
On the other hand, the prices of edible oils decreased by 16.2 percent.
Moreover, the prices of intermediate goods rose by 5.2 percent year-on-year, mainly due to increases in the prices of clothing and footwear (9.7 percent) and cleaning products (4.8 percent). Similarly, prices of services rose by 5.1%, mainly due to higher prices for restaurants, cafes and hotels (11.4%).
Core inflation, excluding energy and food prices, fell to 5.7% in February 20-25 from 6% in January. Prices of non-regulated goods rose by 6.7%, while regulated goods saw a modest increase of 2.2%. On an annual basis, non-regulated food prices rose by 7.8%, compared with just 1.1% for regulated food.
INS also reported that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) fell slightly by 0.1% in February compared to January.
The main drivers were a 3.6% fall in clothing and footwear prices, coinciding with ongoing winter sales, and a 0.1% fall in household goods and services prices, following a recent adjustment in electricity tariffs. In contrast, food prices increased by 0.5%.
TunisianMonitorOnline (NejiMed)
