In August, CPI went up 0.28 percent over the previous month, 1.87 percent over December last year and 2.26 percent over the same period last year. In the first eight months this year, the index saw a year on year increase of 2.57 percent on average, the lowest increase level for the last three years.
Eight out of 11 groups of goods and service saw the index up in August, of these medicine and health service hiked most with 2.81 percent. Education surged 0.57 percent as some localities have increased tuition fees in the new academic year 2019-2020.
Housing and construction materials moved up 0.33 percent majorly because of 0.43 percent hike in rental. Restaurants and catering services raised 0.24 percent with food soaring 0.31 percent and foodstuff 0.29 percent.
Garment items, headwear and footwear rose 0.09 percent, household appliances 0.05 percent, beverage and cigarette 0.03 percent, other goods and services 0.14 percent.
Three groups saw the index down including traffic, culture-entertainment-tourism and post and telecommunication with the decline of 0.46 percent, 0.06 percent and 0.05 percent respectively.
The general department said that health and education service price hike contributed to the CPI increase in August. In addition, African swine fever affected the index. As of August 20, 4.4 million pigs had been destroyed due to the disease causing pork price up 0.89 percent against the previous month.
Core inflation in August soared 0.13 percent over the previous month and 1.95 percent over the same period last year. During the first eight months of 2019, it was up 1.9 percent year on year.
