January CPI up 3.9%

By Fintan Ng

PETALING JAYA: The consumer price index (CPI) for the month of January increased 3.9% to 111.7 compared to 107.5 a year ago.

The Statistics Department said Friday this was due to increases in high weight indices with the food and non-alcoholic beverages index up 9.8% compared to a year ago while the housing, water, electricity gas and other fuels index rose 1.7%.

These two indices together accounted for 89.2% of the overall increase recorded for January.

It said the increase in food and non-alcoholic beverages was the result of significant increases in one of its sub-segments, which showed a rise in rice, bread and other cereals (18.0%), fish and seafood (11.8%), meat (10.4%), vegetables (9.0%) and milk, cheese and eggs (8.0%).

Other increases included alcoholic beverages and tobacco (8.3%), furnishings, household equipment and routine household maintenance (4.9%) and, restaurants and hotels (4.6%).

There were also increases in education (3.0%), miscellaneous goods and services (2.7%), health (2.6%) and recreation services and culture (1.1%).

However, the Statistics Department said transport decreased by 2.1%, clothing and footwear by 0.8% and communication by 0.5%. Compared to December, it said the CPI decreased by 0.1%.

There was also a marginal increase in services (0.2%), and durable goods (0.1%), non-durable goods decreased by 0.5% while semi-durable goods was unchanged.