KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's consumer price index (CPI) growth eased to 3.2 per cent in July compared with 3.6 per cent in June 2017.
The Statistics Department said the transport index contributed the most increase at 7.7 per cent, followed by food and non-alcoholic beverages (4.2 per cent), health (2.9 per cent) and recreation services and culture (2.6 per cent).
The transport index’s significant increase follows the previous month’s 10.5 per cent increase. The average price of RON95 petrol was RM1.96 a litre in July 2017 compared to RM1.75 in July 2016.
As for RON97, the average price increased to RM2.21 in July 2017 compared to RM2.10 in July 2016.
In the case of the food and non-alcoholic beverages which accounted 30.2 per cent in the CPI weights, the increase in July was driven by the food sub-group especially oils and fats which rose by 39.5 per cent.
Cooking oil recorded the one of the most notable increases in July with the 48.9 per cent increase followed by spinach (11.4 per cent), tomatoes (10.4 per cent), Indian mackerel (10.1 per cent) and choy sam vegetable(8.8 per cent).
During the month, carrots, hen’s eggs and onions recorded decreases at -7.9 per cent, -4.9 per cent and -2.2 per cent respectively.
The increase in the index for food and non-alcoholic beverages was reflected more in the highly urbanised states such as Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Putrajaya, Penang, Johor and Melaka.
Based on a seasonally adjusted term, the overall CPI for July 2017 decreased 0.1 per cent compared to June.
Core inflation rose 2.6 per cent in July 2017 compared with the same month of the previous year.
The CPI for the period January to July 2017 registered an increase of 4.0 per cent compared with the same period last year.