Ljubljana - Slovenia's annual inflation rate accelerated to 6.9% in April, up 1.5 percentage points from March and level with the rate in February, driven by higher prices of petroleum products and food, data from the Statistics Office shows.

Prices of liquid fuels went up by 35.9% since April 2021 as prices of fuels and lubricants for cars rose by 29.6%, contributing 1.5 percentage points to the headline rate.

Costlier food and non-alcoholic beverages contributed just as much, with the prices in this group going up by 9.2%.

A 9.2% increase in prices of furnishings, household equipment and routine household maintenance contributed 0.7 points to inflation.

Prices of cars went up by 11% and hospitality services prices rose by 7.9% in a year, contributing 0.6 and 0.4 points to the headline inflation rate.

Inflation would have been even higher had it not been for administrative measures that helped push down electricity prices by 21.6%, which took off 0.8 points from the annual inflation rate.

Prices of goods rose by an average 7.9% and prices of services were up by 5%.

Month-on-month, consumer prices rose by 2.6% in April, mainly due to a 2.9% increase in food prices and a 19.2% surge in prices of package holidays.

Measured with the harmonised index of consumer prices, an EU benchmark, Slovenia's annual inflation in April ran at 7.4%.