The biggest contributor to the annual price increase was costlier fuel, while the monthly rise came on the back of costlier footwear, flights and package holidays.

Goods were 1.4% more expensive and the cost of services rose by 2.6% year-on-year.

The prices of non-durable and semi-durable goods were up 2.3% and 0.2% respectively, while durable goods were 1.5% cheaper.

Costlier fuel contributed 0.6 percentage points to the annual inflation, as the price of liquid fuels increased by 21.6% over April 2016.

On the other hand, cheaper used cars and clothing kept the annual figure down by 0.2 points and 0.1 points, respectively.

Costlier food, especially meat (+2.6%), milk, cheese and eggs (+2.9%) and fruit (+4.8%) added 0.3 percentage points to the inflation.

On the monthly level, footwear prices rose substantially (+19.9%), contributing 0.4 percentage points to the monthly inflation. Costlier flights (+34.0%) and holiday packages (+3.2%) added 0.1 points each.

The harmonised index of consumer prices, an EU gauge, was at 1.7% on the annual level.

In April 2016, the Statistics Office recorded an annual deflation rate of 0.7%.