HICP in Romania

Measures the change in the prices of a representative basket of goods and services bought by Romanian households, compiled by the National Institute of Statistics (INS) under the EU's harmonised methodology (HICP). It makes Romanian inflation comparable with the rest of Europe.

Built from a regular survey of prices at outlets across the country, with each item weighted by household spending under the harmonised COICOP classification. It is published as an index against a base year, with the year-on-year (YoY) and month-on-month (MoM) rates the headline figures.

Inflation is the key reference for the National Bank of Romania (BNR) when setting interest rates. A hotter-than-expected reading reinforces expectations of higher rates and tends to support the leu, while a softer one fuels bets on cuts.

Being harmonised, it does not capture every feature of national consumption and can diverge from the traditional Romanian CPI. To gauge the underlying trend, analysts watch core inflation, which strips out the more volatile energy and unprocessed food, as well as administered prices.