The report of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the month of February 2015 released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has shown that inflationary pressure was mounting, pushing the Index to move up by 8.4 per cent year-on-year, as against 8.2 per cent in January.  

The CPI Report released yesterday showed that all the components that contributed to the index increased at a faster pace during the period, with the exception of Recreation & Culture which also increased but at slower pace.

According to the report, Food prices as observed by the Food Sub-index increased at a faster pace in February partly due to increases in prices of imported food items. The Imported Food Sub-index increased by 8.8 per cent year-on-year, the highest increase recorded since February 2013. The Food Sub-index rose by 9.4 per cent year-on-year.

In the Group report, NBS said while most groups that contributed to the Food Sub-index increased at a faster pace during the month of February 2015, the pace of increase was weighed down by a slower increase in the Bread & Cereals sub-group.

The pace of advances recorded by the “All Items Less Farm Produce” or Core Sub-index increased for the second consecutive month in February, 2015. The Core Sub-index increased by 7.0 per cent (year-on-year), 0.2 percentage points from 6.8 per cent recorded in January 2015.

On a month-on-month basis, food prices increased at a slower rate in February relative to January, 2015 where food prices increased by 0.7 per cent.