Press release No. 039 of 28 January 2021
Consumer price index, January 2021:
+1.0% on the same month a year earlier (provisional)
+0.8% on the previous month (provisional)
Harmonised index of consumer prices, January 2021:
+1.6% on the same month a year earlier (provisional)
+1.4% on the previous month (provisional)
WIESBADEN – The inflation rate in Germany, measured as the year-on-year change in the consumer price index, is expected to be +1.0% in January 2021. Based on the results available so far, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) also reports that the consumer prices are expected to rise by 0.8% compared with December 2020.
Consumer price development may have been affected by changed value added tax rates and other factors such as CO₂ pricing and the increase in statutory minimum wage as of January 2021.
| Overall index / subindex | Weight | October 2020 | November 2020 | December 2020 | January 2021 1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| per thousand | percent | ||||
| 1: Provisional figure. 2: Household energy and motor fuels. 3: Net rents and other rents. | |||||
| Overall index | 1,000 | -0.2 | -0.3 | -0.3 | 1.0 |
| Goods | 468.16 | -1.5 | -1.8 | -1.8 | 0.6 |
| including: | |||||
| Energy 2 | 103.83 | -6.8 | -7.7 | -6.0 | -2.3 |
| Food | 84.87 | 1.4 | 1.4 | 0.5 | 2.2 |
| Services | 531.84 | 1.0 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.5 |
| including: | |||||
| Rents 3 | 207.26 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.2 |
The temporary value added tax reduction intended to support economic recovery during the corona crisis ended on 31 December 2020. As it was the case with the reduction of value added tax rates in summer, the real effects of ending this measure do not necessarily have to correspond to the effects determined in purely mathematical terms. More information is provided in press release no. 215 on the “Impact of the value added tax cut on consumer prices” of 15 June 2020.
The current corona crisis has caused some price collection problems again in January 2021 as some products were not available in the market. For information on the consequences of the lockdown for price collection please refer to our methodological paper. The quality of the provisional overall results continues to be assured.
The consumer price index results are also available on the Corona statistics webpage of the Federal Statistical Office together with other indicators which can be used to assess the economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic.
The coronavirus pandemic, related restrictions on public life and the resulting consequences require a changed approach to the annual updating of the HICP product weights. A methodological paper which discusses this issue is provided on the webpage of the Federal Statistical Office.
The final results for January 2021 will be released on 10 February 2021.
