Sri Lanka’s nationwide inflation in February 2018 determined under the National Consumer Price Index (NCPI) declined to 3.2 percent from 5.4 percent recorded in January 2018 on an year-on-year basis, the Department of Census and Statistics reported Wednesday.
Inflation of 3.2 percent reported for February 2018 is the lowest inflation reported since April 2016, Department of Census and Statistics said.
The NCPI for all items for the month of February 2018 decreased by 1.7 percent to 123.7 from 125.8 in January 2018. The decrease in the index point was due to the expenditure value decrease of food items by 1.96 percent and increase of non‐food items by 0.35 percent.
Y on Y inflation of food group has decreased from 9.0 percent in January to 3.7 percent in February 2018 and that of non‐food group has increased from 2.5 percent to 2.8 percent during this month.
On year on year basis, contribution of food commodities to inflation was 1.63 percent in February 2018 compared to that of February 2017. Contribution of non-food items was 1.53 percent.
The moving average inflation for the month of February 2018 is 7.2 percent. The corresponding rate for January 2018 was 7.6 percent.
