In October, annual inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) declined by 0.1 percentage points to 6.9 percent, from 7.0 percent in September. This decline was mainly due to price movements in food and non-alcoholic beverages, where inflation fell from 11.9 percent to 6.7 percent. Other declines were recorded for clothing and footwear (from 9.2 percent to 8.7 percent), housing, water and electricity (from 3.8 percent to 3.5 percent), furnishing, household equipment and routine maintenance (from 11.4 percent to 10.5 percent), and restaurant and hotels (from 19.3 percent to 18.6 percent). This was, however, substantially offset by the continuing easing of the impact of fuel price increases in the second half of 2008, resulting in deflation for transport slowing significantly (from -11.9 percent to -6.7 percent). Inflation also rose marginally for health (from 5.0 percent to 5.2 percent), recreation and culture (from 6.2 percent to 6.4 percent) and miscellaneous goods and services (from 4.5 percent to 4.6 percent).
Both measures of core inflation declined significantly in October: the trimmed mean fell by 1.0 percentage point from 6.8 percent in September to 5.8 percent; while, excluding administered prices, inflation fell from 12.6 percent to 11.1 percent.