Malaga province inflation hit by petrol and electricity despite stabilisation of grocery prices

However, this is not the province with the highest inflation in the country. That distinction goes to Burgos and Cantabria, where the CPI stood at an identical 4.3%. A Coruña, Girona and Pontevedra also recorded price rises of over 4%, while Cuenca and Ourense recorded rises of exactly that percentage.

Malaga in fact matches the rise in prices across Spain as a whole, where inflation rose by 0.4% in July, from 3.2% in June. At national level, however, this rise in the cost of living is the highest since May 2024.

The factors driving prices up both in the province and across the country in July were, on the one hand, transport, in particular, the prices of fuel and lubricants for private vehicles, and, on the other hand, housing-related costs, especially electricity.

The component of the CPI that measures transportation has risen from a rate of 4.8% in June to 6.6% in July, with the cost of using personal vehicles increasing by 10.4% in the last month, compared to 6.8% the previous month.

As for the housing component, the year-on-year increase in July was 4% (compared to 2.6% in June), with electricity, gas and other fuels rising by 7.3% in July, double the rate in June.

Other components of the CPI that stand out for their month-on-month increase are information and communications services, which went from being virtually stagnant in June to rising by 2.2% in July, or cultural services, which rose by 8.6% year-on-year last month, 1.7% more than the previous month.

After the cost of using private vehicles, cultural services and electricity, the biggest increase in July was in the price of accommodation services (6.9% year-on-year, 0.5% higher than in June), along with insurance and social security (6.2%, the same as the previous month).

Meanwhile, the situation with the shopping basket in Malaga is noticeably different.

The component covering food and non-alcoholic drinks has moderated its rate of price increases from one month to the next, falling from 2.2% in June to 1.9% in July.

The price of food and beverage services, in other words, restaurants and catering, has also fallen over the past month, with the rate dropping from 4.7% in June to 4.5% in July.

The same did not happen with alcoholic drinks, whose rate of price increases accelerated to 3.6% in July.

The summer sales also left their mark on the inflation figures published by the INE national institute of statistics on Thursday. Clothing and footwear prices fell by 2.3% year-on-year in July, with clothing prices falling by 2.8% and footwear by 0.7%.

The same trend extended to furniture and household goods, whose rate of price increases fell from 1.7% in June to 0.6% in July. In particular, household appliances became 3% cheaper year-on-year, household textiles fell by 2.1% and glassware and tableware by 1.1%.

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