The Department of Census and Statistics (DCS) said on Friday that the National Consumer Price Index (NCPI) for June was 6.1%, the same as the previous month.
Core inflation, which reflects the underlying inflation by excluding volatile items of food, energy and transport groups in the economy as measured by the year-on-year (YOY) change based on NCPI for the month of June 2021 has declined to 4.1% from 4.2% in May 2021.
The DCS said contributions to the inflation rate of June 2021 from the food group and non-food group are 4.5% and 1.6% respectively.
Contributions of food and non-food groups to the inflation in June 2020 were 5.8% and 0.5% respectively, resulting in a headline inflation of 6.3%.
With respect to June 2020, the reported increase in percentage of food group was mainly due to higher price levels prevailed in this month of June 2021, particularly prices of rice, coconuts, coconut oil, vegetables, turmeric powder and big onions.
Comparing the month-on-month changes, NCPI in June 2021 has increased to 145.7 from 143.6 reported in May 2021. This shows an increase of 2.1 index points or 1.5% as compared to May 2021. The month-on-month change was contributed by increases of index values of food items by 1.23% and non-food items by 0.22% respectively.
Price increases of food items were reported for rice, vegetables, coconut oil, fresh fish, dried fish, mysore dhal, potatoes, big onions, red onions, sugar, limes, garlic, eggs, green chilies, chicken, chili powder, green gram, turmeric powder and gram. However, decreases in index values were reported for fresh fruits and coconuts.
The increases in index values of non-food groups in June 2021 compared to the previous month was mainly due to the price increases in groups of items ‘transport’ (petrol and diesel), ‘health’ (purchase of medical/pharmacy products) and ‘housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels’ (kerosene oil). Further, a very slight price increase was reported in group of ‘furnishing, household equipment and routine household maintenance’.
However, a very slight price decrease was reported in group of ‘alcoholic beverages, tobacco and narcotics’ compared to the preceding month. Meanwhile, the price indices of ‘clothing and footwear’, ‘communication’, ‘recreation and culture’, ‘education’, ‘restaurants and hotels’ and ‘miscellaneous goods and services’ groups remained unchanged during the month.
(FT)