Food costs over 7 percent more than last year

PALMA
THE price of food in the Balearics has risen by 7.2 percent during the last 12 months.
That's just one of the latest figures released by the National Institute of Statistics that makes grim reading for both consumers and the Balearic Government.

The food inflation rate in the Balearics is currently at 6.9 percent, three points higher than the national average.
The Balearic Minister for Employment and Training, Margarita Nájera, after a meeting of the Islands' cabinet, yesterday announced that the Government intended to introduce measures to combat inflation.

She said that the increase in inflation “could do us damage” and for that reason had to be tackled at all administrative levels.
Najera said that the Spanish economy was going through a “definite slowdown” and faced a “definite threat” from inflation.
The current national rate of inflation is 4.5 percent, the fifth month in a row that it has been over 4 percent.
After a slight drop in the inflation rate in February, the inflation rate increased by 0.3 percent last month in Spain.
The cost of tobacco and alcohol increased by 0.2 percent on the previous month and are now 4 percent more expensive than the same period last year.
In the Balearics, the interannual rate of inflation is situated at 4.3 percent, after an increase of 0.8 percent in March.
The largest increases in prices during the last month were in clothing (2 percent) and transport (1.7 percent). There were also small increases in housing, domestic services, leisure, accommodation and eating out. The only area to register a slight decrease in prices was medicine.

In relation to the interannual figures, food and non-alcoholic drinks (7.2 percent) were followed by transport (7.1 percent), accommodation and eating out (5.1 percent), education (4.6 percent) and housing (4.4 percent).

The food and transport inflation figures come at the end of the two-day Islands Commission conference in Calvia, during which the disadvantages island regions suffer were discussed.

Delegates to the conference highlighted transport costs as one of the main challenges facing their economies.