Helsinki, Apr 15 (IANS): While inflation in Finland fell to 7.9 per cent in March from 8.8 per cent in February, food prices have stayed high, according to official data.

The decrease in inflation was driven by lower petrol and diesel prices, and a smaller-than-expected rise in electricity prices, Xinhua news agency quoted Statistics Finland as saying on Friday.

Food prices, however, remained high in March, representing a 16.2 per cent increase from a year earlier.

The year-on-year price increase in February was 16.3 per cent.

The prices of sugar, flour, and eggs grew the most in March, by more than 30 per cent year-on-year.

This surpasses the expectations of food price monitoring agency Pellervo Economic Research (PTT), which previously estimated that the upward trend would stop by the end of 2022.

Sari Forsman-Hugg, research director at PTT, was quoted by the Finnish national broadcaster Yle as saying that food prices may stabilize "by the end of spring" and may start to decrease towards the end of this year, depending on crop yields and the evolution of the Russia-Ukraine war.

Forsman-Hugg also revised PTT's earlier prediction of an average 3 per cent price increase for 2023 to around 5 per cent.

According to Yle, the last time Finland experienced such a drastic rise in food prices was in the 1970s, during the oil crisis.