but steep rise in food prices
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02/06/2020 - Annual inflation in the OECD area continued to slow sharply to 0.9% in April 2020, compared with 1.7% in March and 2.3% in February. Energy prices plunged by 12.2% in April, following the 3.7% drop in March; the largest fall since September 2015. By contrast, food price inflation climbed sharply to 4.2% in April, from 2.4% in March, the largest annual increase since January 2012.
Excluding food and energy, OECD inflation also slowed sharply to 1.6% compared with 2.1% in March. This is the lowest rate of inflation excluding food and energy in the OECD area since February 2014.
Estimates for the OECD area in May are not currently available but Eurostat's flash estimate1 for the Euro area points to inflation continuing to slow (to 0.1% compared to 0.3% in April) on the back of further falls in energy prices.
Consumer prices, selected areas
April 2020, percentage change on the same period of the previous year, %
Source: Consumer price indices, OECD
Energy (CPI) and Food (CPI), selected areas
April 2018 - April 2020, percentage change on the same period of the previous year, %
Source: Consumer price indices, OECD
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1. Eurostat note: "Data collection for HICP has been affected by the COVID-19 crisis in all euro area countries. Eurostat and the Member States' national statistical institutes have agreed a set of procedures to estimate prices that could not be collected due to mobility restrictions or closures of outlets. All information about these procedures is available on the Eurostat website section on inflation."
Underlying data:
- OECD, annual inflation
- G20, annual inflation
- OECD countries, contributions to annual CPI inflation by COICOP Division, current month (xlsx)
- OECD countries, contributions to annual CPI inflation, selected components, historical series (xlsx)
