December 2017 CPI rises by 3.5 per cent
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures headline inflation, rose by 3.5 per cent to 120.9 in December 2017 from 116.8 in the corresponding month of the preceding year, mainly due to transport, food and beverages.
“Among the major groups which recorded increases were the indices for transport (11.5 per cent), food & nonalcoholic beverages (4.1 per cent), restaurants and hotels (2.6 per cent),” the Department of Statistics (DoS) announced yesterday.
The index for the transport group showed a significant increase of 11.5 per cent on a year-on-year basis in December 2017, after rising 10.8 per cent in November 2017, it said in a statement.
The average price of 1 litre of RON95 petrol was RM2.27 in December 2017 as compared with RM1.90 in December 2016. As for RON97, the average price increased to RM2.55 in December 2017 as compared with RM2.25 in December 2016.
Fuels & lubricants for personal transport equipment accounted for 7.8 per cent of the CPI weights.
Among others, furnishings, household equipment & routine household maintenance also increased by 2.4 per cent), health (+2.3 per cent) and housing, water, electricity, gas & other fuels (+2.2 per cent).
However, on a monthly basis, CPI increased 0.1 per cent in December 2017.
Among the index of food items which recorded notable increases in December 2017 as compared with the same period of last year were long beans (19.3 per cent), cuttlefish (13.5 per cent), spinach (10.2 per cent), choy sum (+7.9 per cent), Indian Mackerel(7.6 per cent), Hardtail Scad (fish)(6.1 per cent), prawn (4.7 per cent), chicken (4.3 per cent) and Spanish Mackerel (3.6 per cent).
Meanwhile, decreases were registered in the index of some food items such as round cabbage (down 14.7 per cent) and watermelon (down 2.1 per cent).
In terms of overall CPI, four states surpassed the national CPI rate of 3.5 per cent namely Johor, Melaka, Negeri Sembilan and Selangor and Federal Territory (FT) Putrajaya.
The DoS said the increase in the index for food & nonalcoholic beverages was reflected in most states in Malaysia, while five states recorded higher increases for food & non-alcoholic beverages index above the national index level for December 2017 compared with the corresponding month in 2016.
The index for food & nonalcoholic beverages rose 5.0 per cent in FT Kuala Lumpur, 4.6 per cent in Melaka, 4.5 per cent in Johor, 4.3 per cent in Sabah & FT Labuan and 4.2 per cent in Selangor & FT Putrajaya, it added.