Germany's inflation rate at 7.4% in Apr 2022

What stands out in April 2022 is the above-average increases in food prices. This is where the impact of the war in Ukraine is becoming more and more visible. Destatis also reports that consumer prices were up 0.8 per cent on March 2022.

Energy prices, in particular, have increased considerably since the war started in Ukraine and have had a substantial impact on the inflation rate.

Additional factors are delivery bottlenecks due to interruptions in supply chains caused by the pandemic and the marked price increases at upstream stages in the economic process. Price increases accelerated for consumers not only regarding energy products but also other product groups such as food as a consequence of the situation of war and crisis, Destatis said in a press release.

The prices of goods (total) increased by 12.2 per cent between April 2021 and April 2022. Energy product prices in April 2022 were by 35.3 per cent higher than in the same month a year earlier, following a 39.5 per cent increase in March 2022. Prices of heating oil (plus 98.6 per cent) nearly doubled in April 2022, and marked price rises were also recorded for motor fuels (plus 38.5 per cent) and natural gas (plus 47.5 per cent).

The price increases for the other energy products were markedly above the overall inflation rate, too, for example the prices of solid fuels (plus 23.9 per cent) and of electricity (plus 19.3 per cent). The price increase for energy products was due to several factors.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)