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BL Premium reports that consumer inflation rose to its highest level in five years in December, backing the case for a potential increase in interest rates as soon as next Thursday when the Reserve Bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC) sits down for its first scheduled meeting of 2022.
Consumer price inflation, as measured by Stats SA’s consumer price index (CPI), hit 5.9% year on year in December, its biggest annual increase since March 2017 when the rate was 6.1%, the data showed on Wednesday. On a month-on-month basis, CPI rose 0.6%. Core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy, accelerated to an annual rate of 3.4% from 3.3% in November. The main factor behind the increase in CPI was the transport category, which recorded an annual increase of 16.8% in December. It was the only major group in the inflation basket that increased above the 6% upper limit of the Bank’s target range, according to Stats SA, which noted that fuel prices had risen 40.5% on the previous year.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Andries Mahlangu at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page