Sri Lanka’s national inflation accelerates to 3.4-pct in July

[The Invisible]

ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka’s national inflation hit a six-month high of 3.4 percent in July 2018 from a year ago, having been below the 3.0 percent level over the previous four months, the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS) said.

Inflation, measured by the National Consumer Price Index (NCPI), had been 2.5 percent in June 2018.

Inflation in July was driven mainly by increases in prices of the non-food category of the index, mainly transport, the DCS said in a statement.

Inflation of the food group in the index increased from 0.5% in June 2018 to 2.4% in July 2018 and that of the non‐food group increased from 4.2% to 4.3%.

The contribution of food commodities to inflation was 1.09 percent in July 2018 while the contribution of non food items was 2.31 percent.

This was mainly due to expenditure value increases in ‘Transport’ (0.79%) and other categories like ‘Health’ (0.49%) and ‘Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other fuels’ (0.21%).
(COLOMBO, 21 August, 2018)