Inflation dips 8.4% in April from 8.6% in March

Year-on-Year inflation based on NCPI has decreased to 8.4% in April 2017 from 8.6% in March 2017, Census and Statistics Director General Dr. Amara Satharasinghe said in a communiqué yesterday.

He said contributions to the inflation from the food group and non-food group in April 2017 are 5.2% and 3.3% respectively, whereas contributions for each of these two groups to the inflation in April 2016 was 2.1%, reflecting the prevailing comparatively lower price levels especially of food prices in April 2016.     

However, when compared to month-on-month changes, NCPI in April 2017 has increased to 121.0 from the 119.5 reported for March 2017. This shows an increase of 1.5 index points or 1.3 percentage points in April 2017 compared to March 2017. This monthly change was due to increases of expenditure value of food items by 1.23% and non-food items by 0.04% respectively. 

The increase in the expenditure value of food items was due to price increases in vegetables, coconuts, banana, fresh fish, red onions, potatoes, chicken, green chilies, coconut oil, sugar, dried fish and rice.  However, decreases in expenditure value on the index were reported for papaw, mysore dhal and dried chilies. 

The increase in the expenditure value of non-food items in April 2017 compared to the previous month was due to expenditure value increases in the groups of ‘Alcoholic Beverages, Tobacco and Narcotics’, ‘Clothing and Footwear’, ‘Miscellaneous Goods and Services’ and ‘Furnishing, Household Equipment and Routine Household Maintenance’. 

Further, very slight increases in expenditure value were reported for the groups of ‘Restaurant and Hotels’ and ‘Transport’ compared to the previous month. The expenditure value of the ‘Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other fuels’, ‘Health’, ‘Communication’, ‘Recreation & Culture’ and ‘Education’ groups remained unchanged during the month.