Household staples keep getting dearer
Despite the prolonged deflation, basic goods are costing Greek households more, a survey by the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) has suggested. Of the 54 food, house cleaning and hygiene products ELSTAT monitors, the cost of 31 has gone up from January 2011 to August 2014, at rates reaching as high as 13.75 percent.
In the last 44 months the price of milk has gone up by 8.25 percent, yogurt has become 8.76 percent more expensive, feta cheese has grown 5.34 percent and other cheese by 5.72 percent.
Meat, fresh and frozen, has undergone price hikes, with beef climbing 5 percent since early 2011, while fresh and frozen fish has seen its price head upstream by 6 percent. Eggs have become 8.87 percent more expensive, but the leader is nuts, which have become 13.75 percent dearer, at a time when Greeks have suffered the most dramatic decline in their disposable income in recent decades.
Notably the Greek per capita gross domestic product, in terms of purchasing power units, lagged the European Union average by 25 percent in 2013, but a representative basket of purchases cost 100 euros in Greece, against 117 euros in Germany, where the per capita GDP is 24 percent above the EU average.
