MADRID (Reuters) -Spanish consumer prices in December rose 6.7% from the same month last year, the fastest annual pace of inflation since 1989, flash data from the National Statistics Institute (INE) showed on Thursday.
The 12-month inflation rate to November was 5.5%, and analysts polled by Reuters had expected the final 2021 reading to come to 5.7%.
Prices increased 1.3% in December from November, compared with a 0.2% rise in December 2020, INE said.
Electricity fees drove the annual price index to the 32-year high, INE said, adding that prices for food also rose significantly in 2021, after a general decline the previous year.
The inflation rate for 2021 was the highest since a 6.9% increase in 1989, when the country was experiencing a rapid economic expansion after joining the European Community, as the European Union was then called, in 1986.
Spain also registered an annual inflation rate of 6.9% in March 1992.
INE data also showed Spain’s EU-harmonised consumer price index rose 6.7% in December on an annual basis, up from 5.5% in November. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected a reading of 5.8%.
(Reporting by Marta Serafinko, editing by Inti Landauro and Hugh Lawson)
