Price situation in Colombo
The Consumers’ Price Index of the Colombo City (CCPI) for all items
of this year’s month of December was posted at 5954.9 index points.
A decrease of 21.3 index point change or 0.4 percentage was noted
from November 2007 posted at 5976.2 index points.
This is a decrease of Rs. 43.01 in the expenditure value of “Market
Basket” when compared to November 2007, the Census and Statistics
Department said.
Price in Food exhibited negative index point change of 57.90. Index
for fuel and light, clothing and miscellaneous recorded the positive
index point changes of 43.86, 15.95 and 80.65 respectively.
The increase in the CCPI for December, 2007 is mainly due to decrease
in prices of coffee seed, sugar, dried chillies, pepper, limes, coconut
oil, some varieties of fresh fish, dried fish, sprats, coconuts and most
varieties of vegetables.
These price decreases can be mainly attributed to more supply of
consumer goods, specially the vegetables to the main markets in Colombo
city due to seasonality.
However, prices of rice, bread and curry, Lactogen, Lakspray, milk
tea, cumin seed, red onions, biscuits - cream crackers, mutton, some
varieties of fresh fish, potatoes, household goods and stationeries have
increased during this month.
The year-on-year (point to point) inflation rate of the Colombo city
for December, 2007 was recorded 16.4% lower by 3.2% compared to previous
month.
Annual inflation rate for the month of December (12 months moving
average) was registered 17.5, higher by 3.8 percentage points compared
to its same period last year’s December level of 13.7 per cent, the
Department said. |