Spain's inflation slows, ends 2022 at 5.7%

MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish inflation slowed down to end 2022 at 5.7% thanks to lower energy price increases, the National Statistics Institute said on Friday, a tad lower than the 5.8% figure released two weeks ago.

INE, as the institute is known, attributed the inflation decline to cheaper heating oil and slower price increases of electricity and fuels.

Analysts polled by Reuters saw the 2022 inflation at 5.8%.

Even though the overall price index has fallen fast, since its peak of 10.8% in July, core inflation in 2022, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, rose to 7.0% from 6.3% in the period through November.

"We expect the core inflation start falling soon," Economy Minister Nadia Calvino said on RNE radio station. "As for now, the good news is that inflation has fallen 5 percentage points in five months," she said.

European Union-harmonised inflation in 2022 was 5.5%, 0.1 percentage point lower than the INE's previous estimate, two weeks ago.

The harmonised rate in Spain was the lowest in the European Union in November, according to Eurostat data.

(Reporting by Marta Serafinko and Emma Pinedo, editing by Inti Landauro and Toby Chopra)