Ten-month CPI increases 2.89% year on year
Ten-month CPI increases 2.89% year on year
The consumer price index (CPI) posted year-on-year growth of 2.89 per cent in the first ten months of 2022 while core inflation rose 2.14 per cent, the General Statistics Office (GSO) revealed on October 29.
A contributor to the CPI hike was higher petrol prices, which went up 36.01 per cent during the period, while gas prices fluctuated in line with changes in the global markets, up 15.35 per cent from a year earlier.
As the COVID-19 pandemic was brought under control, demand for restaurant services has bounced back, leading to a 4.6 per cent rise in eating-out prices in the ten months. Prices of housing and construction materials also became more expensive, up 2.44 per cent year on year.
While domestic rice prices increased in line with export prices, up 1.16 per cent, foodstuff prices also grew slightly, by 0.95 per cent from the same period last year.
In contrast, prices of educational services fell 0.61 per cent during the January-October period since some localities reduced or exempted school fees for the 2021-2022 academic year in response to the COVID-19 pandemic’s impacts. Postal and telecommunications services witnessed a year-on-year decline of 0.4 per cent in prices.
The 10-month core inflation went up 2.14 per cent from a year earlier, lower than the CPI growth (2.89 per cent), showing that changes in consumer prices were mainly driven by fluctuations in food, foodstuff, and petrol prices, the GSO noted.
In October alone, the CPI inched up 0.15 per cent from the previous month partly due to rebounding house rental and school fee hikes in some localities. It rose 4.16 per cent from December 2021 and 4.3 per cent from the same period last year.
The October core inflation increased 0.45 per cent from last month and 4.47 per cent from the same period last year, statistics showed.
