Spain was the only country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) where energy prices fell in 2022, which contributed to inflation ending the year at 5.7%, the fifth lowest from the 38 member states, reports the EFE agency.

Between December 2021 and December 2022, energy prices in Spain decreased by 6.9%, while in the OECD they rose by 18.4% and in the euro zone by 25.5%, the same percentage as in the Union European, the organization mentioned on Tuesday, according to Agerpres.

Behind this decrease in Spain was, in particular, the application of the so-called Iberian exception, which allows the imposition of a ceiling on the price of gas used to generate electricity, in exchange for compensation for operators which use this fuel.

However, the Iberian exception does not explain everything, as demonstrated by the fact that in Portugal, which also benefits from this mechanism, in 2022 energy prices increased by 20.8%.

The OECD countries where energy prices rose the least last year were Mexico (3%), New Zealand (4.1%), Costa Rica (4.6%), Greece (4.9%) and Norway ( 6.5%).

At the opposite pole, the increases reached the level of 45.5% in Latvia, 52.3% in Great Britain and up to 91.6% in Turkey.

Year-on-year inflation in the OECD stood at 9.4% at the end of December 2022, following its second consecutive monthly decline, following the peak of 10.8% reached in October. This was the lowest level since April 2022.

In Spain, inflation was 5.7% in December, nine tenths lower than in November, due to the drop in energy prices.

The only OECD countries that had an inflation rate lower than Spain’s in the last month of 2022 were Switzerland (2.8%), Japan (4%), South Korea (5%) and Israel (5.3%). That is- no country in the European Union, where the average inflation in December stood at 10.4%, in the euro zone it was 9.2%.

One of the main factors responsible for inflation in Spain, as in many other countries, was the price of food. It increased in Spain by 15.7% in 2022 (year-on-year growth in November was 15.3%) and in the OECD by 15.6%.