Sri Lanka’s overall rate of inflation as measured by the Colombo Consumer Price Index (CCPI) on year-on-year (y-o-y) basis has increased to 3.4% in November, from 1.5% in October.
The Department of Census and Statistics (DCS), in its latest report, said the year-on-year inflation of the food group increased to -3.6% in November from -5.2% in October.
Meanwhile, the year-on-year inflation of the non-food group rose to 6.8% in November from 4.9% in October.
For the month of November, the contribution to inflation by food commodities was -1.20%, while the contribution of non-food items was 4.5%. The DCS said this was mainly due to the increases in value change in groups of housing, water, electricity, gas & other fuels, education, clothing & footwear, alcoholic beverages, tobacco & narcotic, recreation & culture, health and miscellaneous goods & services.
A decrease in value change was reported for the groups of furnishing household equipment and routine household maintenance, restaurants and hotels and transport. Further, a very slight price increase was reported in group communication during the month.
The CCPI is an economic indicator constructed to measure inflation which is defined in percentage change in the CCPI over the year. There are two measures of inflation in general use. One measure is the year-on-year base or point-to-point inflation (the percentage change in the CPI during the last 12 months). The other measure is ‘moving average inflation’ (the percentage difference between the average price index of the last 12 months and the average price index of previous 12 months).
-adaderana
