Romania’s consumer price inflation eased slightly to 1.8% y/y in November from 1.9% y/y in October after the prices remained virtually unchanged on the month, the statistics office reported. The country’s headline inflation thus reached a new historic minimum.

The visible disinflation in H2 this year was mainly driven by food prices, which decreased by 1.8% y/y in November – compared to a 6.4% annual increase marked in May. The steep deceleration was due to the volatile production of farmers, who enjoyed abundant crops this year.

For comparison, however, the annual inflation of non-food goods eased much slower from 5.5% y/y in May to 4.4% y/y in November. The rise in services’ fees even accelerated from 2.9% y/y in May to 3% y/y in November.

CORE2 inflation was 0.9% y/y in October, according to the latest data of the central bank. The adjusted CORE2 inflation, calculated by the central bank by removing other goods with volatile prices from the basket, moved in the negative area with a 0.05% y/y contraction in October. HIPC inflation was 1.2% y/y – compared to a 1.9% y/y inflation calculated under the national methodology in October.