North Macedonia’s average annual inflation accelerated by 1.5 percentage points (pp) from the previous month to 16% in June (chart), statistics office data showed on June 8.

Inflation started to increase rapidly since April 2021. The central bank said in June that the inflation was mainly driven by import prices of food and energy, which are growing at a much stronger pace than expected. However, the pressures quickly spilled over to the prices of other products and services, and added to fuel inflationary expectations.