Hungary leads EU in overall price increases

According to a recent survey, Hungarians may shop more often next year, but buy less at those occasions. The researchers explain the expected trend by the extremely high food price rises.

Average inflation was 23.1 percent in Hungary in November, according to Eurostat’s Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP), on an annual basis. Food prices rose by 49.2 percent for the whole product group, Haszon.hu reports.

Hungary has jumped to first place in the EU in terms of annual overall price increases, ahead of the formerly leading Baltic countries, napi.hu writes.

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Recent research from the Mastercard Economics Institute shows that people are unlikely to keep up with soaring inflation next year. They may go shopping more often, but always spend less. They will pay more attention to the value for money of products, buy more cost-effective goods and put fewer items in their shopping baskets.

This is evidenced by the fact that their surveys show that, for example, people in Germany went to the grocery store on average 23 percent more often this year than in 2019, but spent 19 percent less when they shopped.

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Source: napi.hu, haszon.hu