As for the individual product groups, food products saw the highest price increase (7.2%), followed by alcoholic beverages and tobacco products (6.9%). Service prices increased at a lower-than-average rate, by 2.9% on average, while household energy prices increased by 0.3%. This is explained by the unchanged price caps. The price of durable consumer goods increased by 1.4%, and that of clothing did not change. Vehicle fuel prices dropped by 5.6%.
The restrictive measures, imposed because of the coronavirus epidemic, hit the sales volume of accommodation providers and, consequently, the whole tourism sector. In November, the total number of guest nights fell by 85.0% on a year-on-year basis. More specifically, the number of domestic guest nights decreased by 76.3% and that of foreign guest nights by 93.1% Consequently, accommodation providers’ revenues were 84.7% lower than one year before.
Accrual data show that the general government deficit, as a share of GDP, was 4.6% in the first three quarters. This was attributable to the 1.0% increase of revenues and the 10.2% increase of expenditures. For the year as a whole, the Ministry of Finance estimates that the cash deficit could have been 8.6% (or even higher because of year-end expenditures). Accordingly, the debt-to-GDP ratio could have increased to 81.2% by the end of 2020, from the 65.4% recorded in 2019.
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