The inflationary developments in 2021 are under impact of an increase in aggregate demand, bottlenecks in global supply chains, and basic commodities prices trends in the global market, primarily of the crude oil. Official MONSTAT data show an increase of year-on-year inflation for 11 months of 2021 of 2.2 percent, whereby the strongest positive contribution to developments of domestic consumer prices comes from prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages (1.1 percentage points) and transportation prices (0.7 percentage points). The annual inflation growth in November 2021 was 4.4 percent, propelled by increase of prices in the following categories: Fuel and lubricants for motor vehicles (growth of 30.8 percent), Oils and fats (growth of 36.6 percent), and Vegetables (12.5 percent). Export prices for the first nine months of 2021 were higher by 13.0 percent on average year-on-year, due to the increase in prices of base metals, while import prices grew by 7.1 percent.
