Average inflation in Montenegro

Measures the change in the price of a representative basket of goods and services bought by Montenegrin households. It is published by the statistics office MONSTAT and is the country's main gauge of inflation.

Compiled from a regular price survey across a wide sample of outlets, weighting each item by its share in household spending on an index with a base year of 100. Average annual inflation is the mean of the year's year-on-year changes.

Prices bear directly on consumption, savings and purchasing power. Because Montenegro uses the euro unilaterally and has no central bank of its own, inflation is not managed by national monetary policy but reflects domestic prices and imported pressures.

It measures only the defined basket, not the whole economy, and the country's small size means one-off factors such as seasonal tourism can swing the index sharply. For the underlying trend, core inflation, excluding energy and unprocessed food, is watched.