Romania's consumption price index, which measures the inflation, grew by 0.7% in February this year as compared to the previous month and the annual inflation advanced to 7.97% according to the latest National Statistics Institute data. As compared to January, prices increased in non-food products by 1.1% while service and food tariffs grew by 0.5 and 0.4%.
For non-food products, the highest growth was registered for gas (8.42%), newspapers, book and magazines (1.47%) and fuel (1.29%). Services increased their prices due to higher urban transportation costs (a 3.54% increase) or higher utility charges (by 2.05%).
In February, Romania's National Bank changed its forecast regarding the inflation rate for 2008, from 4.3% to 5.9% but it decided to maintain the target of 3.8%.
