Tunisia's inflation rate confirmed its upward trend in January 2023, up to 10.2% against 10.1% in December 2022, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INS).

This increase is mainly explained by soaring food prices by 14.1% within one year, especially the prices of eggs (+29.6%), lamb meat (+28.1), edible oils (23.5%), beef (21%), cereal derivatives (+16.9%) and fresh vegetables (+14.7%).

Likewise, manufactured goods and services edged up 10.2% due to the 9.1% increase in building materials prices, 9.5% in clothing products and 10.3% in common household cleaning products.

Services also saw a 7.3% year-on-year prices increase due mainly to the rise by 9.8% in prices for restaurant, café and hotel services and by 15.9% in public and private transport services.

The core inflation rate excluding food and energy, stood at 8.1% against 7.7% the previous month, the INS said.

Prices of unregulated products increased by 10.7% within one year, prices of regulated products rose by 8.5%, while free food products edged up by 16.7% against 0.6% for regulated food products.