Nationwide inflation contracts to 2.8%

Nationwide inflation during March this year contracted to 2.8 per cent year-on-year from 3.2 per cent recorded in February 2018 as food inflation declined. The Department of Census and Statistics highlighted that the year-on-year inflation of food declined to 2.6 per cent in March from 3.7 per cent recorded in February 2018, while non-food inflation increased 10 basis points to 2.9 per cent, from 2.8 per cent in the previous month. The department highlighted that the 12-month moving average inflation had declined to 6.7 per cent in March from 7.2 per cent in February this year, as the moving average for food inflation contracted to 10.2 per cent from 10.9 per cent, while non-food inflation contracted to 3.9 per cent from 4.2 per cent a month ago. The National Consumer Price Index contracted to 122.8 index points in March from 123.7 index points in February this year. On a year-on-year basis, contribution of food commodities to inflation was 1.19 per cent in March 2018 compared to March 2017, while this was 1.59 per cent for the non-food category. The contribution for the non-food category came from “expenditure value increases” in groups of ‘Miscellaneous Goods and Services' (0.29%), ‘Transport’ (0.27%), ‘Health’ (0.26%), ‘Education’ (0.17%), ‘Furnishing Household equipment and Routine household maintenance' (0.15%), ‘Clothing and Footwear’ (0.13%) and ‘Housing, Water, electricity, Gas and Other fuels’ (0.11%). However, decrease in expenditure value was reported for group of ‘Communication’ (0.01%),” the Department said.