The annual inflation rate slowed down to 6.8% in August, up from 7.2% in July, but still 1.4% more than that of the same period last year, the Central Bureau of Statistics said this week.
The slowdown was attributed to a reduction in the prices of household goods including furniture, heating and cooking appliances, refrigerators and washing machines.

The annual inflation rates for the major groups comprising the inflation basket was food and non-alcoholic beverages (13.8%), housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels (3.5%) and transport (3.6% ).
The monthly inflation rate for August was estimated at 0.6%, a decrease of 0.3 percentage points over the July 2007 rate of 0.9%. This decrease resulted from monthly decreases in the subgroups of furniture, furnishings, decorations, carpets, floor coverings including repairs; carpets and other floor coverings; heating and cooking appliances, refrigerators, washing machines; as well as audio-visual, photographic and data processing equipment including repairs.
The All Items Index for August increased by 0.9 percentage points up from 138.2 in July 2007 to 139.1
The index for food and non alcoholic beverages for August increased to 150.6 percentage points - a monthly increase of 1.8 percentage points from the 148.8 recorded in July.
This increases were due to increases recorded in the subgroups of milk, cheese and eggs (3.3%), vegetables including potatoes and other tubers (2.4% ), sugar, jam, honey, syrups, chocolate and confectionery (2.4% ), oils and fats (1.6% ) food products  (1.4% ), Fruit (1.4% ), coffee, tea and cocoa (1.4% , food (1.2% ), bread and Cereals (1.2% ).