- 0.18% monthly increase on CPI of February 2019.
- 1.55% annual decrease on CPI of February 2019, compared with February 2018.
The Planning and Statistics Authority (PSA) has released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the month of February 2019. The CPI of February 2019 reached to 107.76 point (base year is 2013), showing an increase of 0.18% when compared to CPI of January 2019. Compared to CPI of February 2018, [Y-o-Y basis], a decrease of 1.55% has been recorded in the general index (CPI) of this month.
An analysis [on M-o-M basis] of CPI for February 2019 compared with January 2019 CPI, shows that there are four main groups, where respective indices in this month have increased, namely: “Clothing and Footwear” by 3.69%, followed by “Food and Beverages” by 1.13%, “Miscellaneous Goods and Services” by 0.45%, and “Housing, Water, Electricity and Gas” by 0.28%. A decrease had shown on “Recreation and Culture” by 0.78%, “Transport” by 0.75%, “ Tobacco”, “Furniture and Household Equipment”, “ Health”, “ Communication”, “Education”, and “Restaurants and Hotels” and “ groups has remained flat at the last month’s price level.
A comparison of the CPI, February 2019 with the CPI, February 2018 (Annual Change), a decrease has been recorded in the general index (CPI), by 1.55%. This [Y-o-Y] price decrease is primarily due to the decreasing prices seen in the seven groups, namely: “Communication” by 11.45%, followed by “Recreation and Culture” by 6.49%, “Transport” by 2.85%, “Housing, Water, Electricity and other Fuel” by 2.66%, “Food and Beverages” by 1.16%, “Clothing and Footwear” by 0.66%, and “Restaurants and Hotels” by 0.13%, Also, there has been an increase in price levels in five groups namely: “Tobacco” by 127.19%, “Education” by 9.25%, “Furniture and Household Equipment” by 1.31%, “Miscellaneous Goods and Services” by 0.26%, and “Health” by 0.10%.
Regards the contribution relative, which is a percentage reflects the different contribution of the main groups on the CPI annual rate. For the month of February, 2019, noticed that the “Recreation and Culture” had the highest contribution on same direction of CPI annual rate, by 51.77%, followed by “Education" in opposite direction of CPI annual rate, by 38.99%.
The CPI of February , 2019 excluding “Housing, Water, Electricity and other Fuel” group stands at 108.10 points showing an increase of 0.15 % when compared to the index of January 2019, and an annual decrease by 1.23% when compared to the CPI of February, 2018.
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