Denmark Inflation Steady At 0.5% In August

(RTTNews) - Denmark's consumer price inflation was unchanged in August as the effect of the coronavirus pandemic continued to ebb, preliminary data from Statistics Denmark showed on Thursday.

The consumer price index climbed 0.5 percent year-on-year, the same as in July.

The consumer price index for August is affected by COVID-19, but not to the same extent as July and previous months, as the drop in price observations has been smaller, the agency said.

Headline inflation was driven to a large extent by price changes in alcoholic beverages and tobacco, mainly the price hike for cigarettes.

Prices of cigarettes surged by 27.7 percent annually as the taxes on tobacco were hiked. Excluding that, cigarette prices would have risen only 0.2 percent.

Core inflation, which excludes prices of energy and fresh food, eased to 0.9 percent from 1 percent in the previous month, largely due to the drag from price changes in hotel overnight stays.

Compared to the previous month, the CPI decreased 0.4 percent in August, which was the biggest decline in a year. The slump was led by falling prices for charter travel, holiday rentals and air travel.

The agency noted that it was still not possible to obtain prices from certain sectors due to the effect of the coronavirus pandemic.