Moderate CCPI increase in May

The Colombo Consumers' Price Index (CCPI) (2002=100), computed by the Census and Statistics Department, increased moderately by 0.6 per cent, to 234.8 in May from 233.4 in April 2011.

The year-on-year inflation moved down significantly to 8.8 per cent in May from a high of 9.8 per cent in April 2011, as anticipated.

However, inflation on an annual average basis increased to 6.9 per cent in May from 6.6 per cent in the previous month.

Meanwhile, core inflation on a year-on-year basis marginally increased to 4.8 per cent in May 2011 from 4.7 per cent in April 2011 while the annual average rate continued to decrease to 5.0 per cent in May from 5.1 per cent in the previous month.

The contribution to the monthly increase of 0.6 per cent in the Index came mainly from price increases in the sub groups of food and non alcoholic beverages (0.4 per cent) and housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels (1.1 per cent). Within the food sub category, prices of fish and seafood, condiments such as red onions and limes; and potatoes increased while prices of almost all varieties of vegetables, fruits, green chilies, big onions and eggs declined due to improvements in supply.

Prices in the sub categories of clothing and footwear (0.8 per cent); Furnishing, household equipment and routine household maintenance (0.9 per cent); Health (0.8 per cent); Transport (0.6 per cent) and Miscellaneous goods and services (0.3 per cent) also increased.