Both food and non-food dropped by 2.26% and 6.62% respectively compared to October month
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the month of November 2022 increased by 4.59% compared to the same month the previous year, according to the CPI Bulletin for November 2022 released by the National Statistics Bureau (NSB) recently.
The inflation rate is 0.66% points lesser than the rate recorded in the previous month of October, which was 4.89%. The increase is mainly associated with the increase in food prices by 1.30%.
However, the rate for both food and non-food dropped by 2.26% and 6.62% respectively compared to October month.
According to the report, the transport was the main driver with an 11.80% increase, contributing 39% of the overall inflation followed by food and non-alcoholic beverages recording a 2.24% increase, contributing 22% to the overall inflation.
In addition, clothing and footwear recorded the second-highest increase among the 12 major divisions with 7.28%, contributing to 10% of the overall inflation.
Month-on-month CPI in November is 0.66%, which is an increase from October. Both the food and non-food prices increased in comparison to the previous month, the increase being 1.12% and 0.27% respectively.
Except for the housing and utilities which decreased by 0.04%, the prices of all the other eleven major divisions have increased.
And the prices of household goods and services increased by 7.35% from 2020 to 2021. This was an increase of 1.72 percentage points compared to 5.63% increase in 2020.
Meanwhile, the higher rate in 2021 was due to an increase in non-food by 5.62% compared to a 1.24% increase in 2020. Food prices contributed to about 60% of the overall inflation rate in 2021 and non-food contributed to 40% of the total increase.
In 2020, food prices were the main driver of the inflation rate contributing to almost 90% of the total increase.
Among the 12 major divisions, food & alcoholic beverages contributed to more than 50% of the total increase in 2021, followed by transport with about 15% and clothing & footwear with about 11% contribution to the total increase.
However, alcoholic beverages and betel nuts recorded the highest increase at 16.66% while education fees recorded the lowest increase at 0.66% in 2021. All other divisions recorded an increase except for communication which dropped by 9.90%.
Nidup Lhamo from Thimphu
