Year on Year inflation based on the National Consumer Price Index NCPI has increased to 8.2% in February 2017 from 6.5% in January 2017.
Census and Statistics Director General Dr. Amara Satharasinghe said the reason for increase in inflation was due to the comparatively lower price levels that prevailed in February 2016.
In February 2016 contribution to the inflation from food group was -0.3% and non-food group was 2.0%. Nevertheless, in February 2017 contribution to the inflation from food group and non-food group are 4.5% and 3.8% respectively.
The Department of Census and Statistics has released the National Consumer Price Index (NCPI) for February 2017. NCPI has been calculated as 119.9 for February 2017. This shows an increase of 0.6 index points or a percentage of 0.5 compared to the previous month’s (January) index of 119.3. This monthly change was due to the increases of expenditure value of food items by 0.31% and non-food items by 0.23% respectively.
The increase in expenditure value of food commodity group in February 2017 compared to that of January 2017 was due to the price increases in coconuts, vegetables, coconut oil, fresh fish, green chilies, banana, mangoes, garlic and red onions. However, decreases in expenditure value in index were reported for rice, limes, potatoes, mysore dhal, chicken, dried chilies and chilly powder.
The increase in expenditure value of non food commodity group in February 2017 compared to the preceding month was due to the expenditure value increases in groups of Transport’, ‘Education’, ‘Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other fuels’, ‘Furnishing, Household equipment and Routine household maintenance’ and ‘Miscellaneous Goods and Services’.
However, expenditure value decreases were observed for groups of ‘Alcoholic beverages, Tobacco and Narcotics’ and ‘Recreation and Culture’.
Further, very slight increases in expenditure value were reported for groups of ‘Restaurant and Hotels’, ‘Clothing and Footwear’ and very slight expenditure value decrease was reported for group of ‘Health’ compared to the previous month.
The expenditure value of ‘Communication’ group remain unchanged during the month.
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