Sri Lanka July inflation up to 3.4-pct

Aug 22, 2018 (LBO) - Sri Lanka's overall rate of inflation as measured by the National Consumer Price Index (NCPI),on year on year is 3.4 percent in July 2018 compared to 2.5 percent in June 2018 , the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS) said. Y on Y inflation of food group has increased from 0.5 percent in June 2018 to 2.4 percent in July 2018 and that of non‐food group has also increased from 4.2 percent to 4.3 percent during this month. On year on year basis, contribution of food commodities to inflation was 1.09 percent in July 2018 compared to that of July 2017. Contribution of non food items was 2.31 percent. This was mainly due to expenditure value increases in groups of ‘Transport’ (0.79%), ‘Health’ (0.49%), ‘Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other fuels’ (0.21%), ‘Miscellaneous Goods and Services' (0.19%), ‘Education’ (0.17%), ‘‘Clothing and Footwear’ (0.13%) and ‘Furnishing Household equipment and Routine household maintenance' (0.10%). However, slightly decrease in expenditure value was reported for group of ‘Communication’ The NCPI for all items for the month of July 2018 was 126.6. An increase of 0.1 index points that is percentage of 0.01 was reported in July 2018 compared to that of June 2018 for which the index was 126.5. This increase represents increase in expenditure value of Rs. 5.58 in the “Market Basket”.