Destatis also reported today that the consumer price index for Germany rose 3.3% in July 2008 on July 2007 - 15 year  high. (December 1993: + 4.2%; June 2008: + 3.3%). Compared with June 2008, the index increased by 0.6%.
 
The inflation rate of July 2008 was characterised mainly by price increases for non-durable consumer goods (+ 8.2%), in particular the prices for energy and food were much higher in July 2008 than in July 2007 (+15.1% and +8.0%) and accounted for more than two thirds of the total price increase.
 
In the energy sector, prices were up especially for mineral oil products (+ 24.0%; including liquid fuel: + 59.4% and motor fuels: + 15.2%). Although above-average price rises were observed also for the other sources of household energy (gas: + 8.1% and electricity: + 6.8%), they were markedly below the price increases for mineral oil products. Not considering the price trend for energy products (household energy and motor fuels), the year-on-year rate of price increase would have been +1.9%.
 
As regards food, milk, cheese and eggs were much more expensive than one year earlier (+ 18.0%; including curd: + 28.4%; sliced cheese: + 27.1% and yoghurt: + 16.9%), followed by oils and fats (+ 17.0%; including vegetable oil: + 29.9% and butter: + 13.2%), bread and cereals (+ 9.1%; including noodles: + 28.8% and rolls: + 9.1%). Markedly higher prices were recorded in July 2008 also for a bar of chocolate (+ 14.6% compared with July 2007). In contrast to that, below-average price increases were observed for fish and sea fruit (+ 1.4%).
 
Compared with non-durable consumer goods, the price trend for consumer goods with a medium-term life (− 0.2%; including clothing and footwear: − 0.9%) and durable consumer goods (− 0.6%; including information processing equipment: − 15.6% and household appliances: − 0.5%) had a dampening effect on inflation. The prices of services were an average 1.5% above the index level of the previous year (including insurance services: + 3.8% and net rents exclusive of heating expenses: + 1.3%).

The relatively strong rate of change of the consumer price index on June 2008 (+0.6%) was above all caused by the prices of package holidays (+13.8%), accommodation services (+9.7%; including holiday home rents: +27.1%) and air travel (+8.9% ), which increased substantially at the beginning of the holidays. In the holiday month of July 2008, consumers also had to pay higher prices for motor fuels (+1.4%). Thus motor fuel prices reached a new peak.
 
Food prices increased an average 0.3% on the previous month. As is typical for this season, the prices of some types of vegetables declined (including cucumbers: −12.5% and lettuce: −7.4%), while price rises were recorded for some types of fruit, namely oranges (+5.8%) and apples (+5.0%). Repeated price increases were also observed for milk, and oils and fats (including butter: +5.8%; vegetable oil: +3.4% and fresh full-cream milk: +2.3%). Compared with June 2008, however, drops in prices were recorded, among other things, for clothing and footwear (−3.1%; of which clothing: −3.4% and footwear: −1.6%). Price reductions were particularly observed for items in the summer sales.
 
The EU harmonised consumer price index (HICP) for Germany, which is calculated for European purposes, rose 3.5% in July 2008 on July 2007. Compared with the previous month, the index was up 0.7%. The HICP estimate of 29 July 2008 was thus slightly revised upwards.