JAKARTA, Feb 1 – Indonesia’s January inflation cooled to its slowest rate in five months, but remained above the central bank target, official data showed on Wednesday.
The headline annual inflation rate in January was 5.28%, compared to the 5.40% expected by economists polled by Reuters. The rate also eased compared to 5.51% in December and was the lowest since August.
January’s inflation was driven by prices of some food products, air fares and higher cigarette prices, Margo Yuwono, head of Statistics Indonesia, told reporters.
The core inflation rate, which excludes government-controlled price and volatile food prices, eased to 3.27%, down from 3.36% in December and compared with a 3.33% forecast.
Indonesia’s central bank aims to bring down the headline inflation to within its target range of 2%-4% in the second half this year. It had hiked the policy interest rate by a total of 225 basis points since August.
Source : Nasdaq