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Delivery of heating oil: Energy drives up prices
Photo: David Indian song / dpa
Goods and services rose again in Germany in February.
The inflation rate was 5.1 percent compared to the same month last year, as the Federal Statistical Office announced in a first estimate.
The main reason is rising energy prices.
Here the increase was 22.5 percent.
In January, the inflation rate fell to 4.9 percent after hitting a 5.3 percent highest level in almost 30 years in December.
Experts have recently corrected their forecasts for the development of inflation significantly upwards because of the Ukraine war.
Since Russia is a major energy supplier, the West's sanctions and countermeasures could lead to rising energy prices.
The German Economic Institute (IW) considers inflation in Germany of up to 6.1 percent possible in 2022 if an escalation in Ukraine leads to higher gas prices.
In 2021, consumer prices had already risen by 3.1 percent, the most since 1993.
More companies than ever before want to raise their prices in order to cushion rising costs, as a recent survey by the Munich Ifo Institute revealed.
Because the price of imports increased by almost 27 percent in January within a year, and thus as strongly as in October 1974 during the first oil price crisis.
mmq/Reuters/dpa