The rate of inflation for the twelve-month period ended February 2014 rose to 3.9% from 3.7% for the twelve-month period ended January 2014, according to data from Statistics Mauritius.
Statistics Mauritius on Friday released its monthly publication for the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in February 2014, where it indicated that the CPI increased from 107.2 in January 2014 to 108.5 in February 2014.
The main contributor to the rise in the index between January and February 2014 were vegetables, which contributed 1.2 index points to the overall CPI increase of 1.3 points. Other significant changes between the two months were a decrease of 0.1 index points for fruits and a 0.2 increase in the index points for other goods and services.
In terms of sub-indices under the twelve categories of consumption expenditure for the month of February 2014, the ‘food and non-alcoholic beverages’ category saw an increase of 3.7%, standing at 114.4 in February 2014 compared to 110.3 in January 2014.
The ‘clothing and footwear’ division increased by 0.8% to 109.1 in February 2014 from 108.2 in January 2014 while ‘recreation and culture’ division also saw an increase of 0.5% between January and February 2014.
Finally, both the ‘alcoholic beverages and tobacco’ and ‘restaurants and hotels’ divisions witnessed an increase of 0.3%, standing at 116.6 and 111.2 respectively for the month of February 2014.
‘Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels,’ ‘Health,’ and ‘education’ remained unchanged between the period January and February 2014.
The categories of ‘furnishings, household equipment and routine household maintenance’ and ‘communication’ counterbalanced the increase in other consumption classes with a decline of 0.7 % and 0.1% respectively.
Also, for the month of February 2014, the ‘miscellaneous goods and services’ category stood at 104.3 compared to 103.3 in January 2014, representing an increase of 1%.
The headline inflation rate for the twelve months ending February 2014 works out to 3.9%, compared to 3.6% for the twelve months ending February 2013.
The year-on-year inflation rate for February 2014, as measured by the change in the CPI for February 2014 relative to February 2013, works out to 5.6%.
It may be noted that the year-on-year inflation rate is used by the central bank as a measure of price rise in the island economy. The year-on-year inflation is on a steep upward trend, as it surged from 4.0 per cent in December 2013 to 5.1 per cent in January 2014.
Image (Absolute Vanilla): The main contributor to price rise between January and February 2014 were vegetables, which contributed 1.2 index points to the overall Consumer Price Index increase of 1.3 points.
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