Bulgaria's year-on-year inflation rate rose to an eight-year high in March, paced by higher prices for food and tobacco products, the National Statistical Institute said Monday, according to dpa. Consumer prices in the Balkan nation have surged 3.4 per cent month-on-month since the start of the year, far beyond the government's inflation target. In Romania, which joined the European Union last year along with Bulgaria, rising fuel prices helped push the annual inflation rate to 8.6 per cent in March, the highest in more than two years, official data showed. Rapid economic growth, coupled with higher food and energy prices, has sent inflation surging in much of Eastern Europe. Central banks in Romania and Bulgaria have been raising interest rates, and economists expect the inflation spike to peak in 2008. Slowing growth in the region, partly due to the cooling of the global economy, is likely to ease pressure on prices - and on governments that are falling short of economic goals. Bulgaria's 2008 budget envisaged an inflation rate of 6.9 per cent, growth of 6.9 per cent and a budget surplus equalling 3 per cent of the gross-domestic product. Last year, Bulgaria clocked a 12.4 per cent inflation, shattering the target of 4.4 per cent halfway through the year. Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund has lowered its growth forecast for Bulgaria to 5.5 per cent from 6.2 per cent. In Romania, the official 2008 inflation target is 3.8 per cent. Last year's target was 4.3 per cent, but inflation came in sharply higher at 6.6 per cent.
