“This rate was 0.5 of a percentage point higher than the corresponding annual rate of 8.1% at January 2009,” Stats SA said on Wednesday, 25 March 2009.
On average, prices increased by 1.2% between January 2009 and February 2009.
Speaking to BuaNews on Wednesday, Nedbank Economist Carmen Altenkich said, “The CPI was a little higher than we expected.” She further predicted that March would be a difficult month.
Investment Solutions senior economist Chris Hart was also disappointed to see that the CPI had increased.
“Its disappointing that it rose from last month and that this was more than expected. This would suggest that inflation, particularly food inflation is a problem, we must however bear in mind that overall inflation is in a downward spiral,” said Hart.
The food and non-alcoholic beverages index increased by 0.2% between January 2009 and February 2009, taking the annual rate to 15.8% in February 2009, Stat SA reported.
The monthly increase in the food and non-alcoholic beverages index was largely driven by monthly increases in cold beverages, other food, meat and fish with increases of 4.2%, 0.5%, 0.4% and 0.2% respectively. Sugar, sweets and desserts also contributed 0.3% to the increase.
According to Stats SA, the alcoholic beverages and tobacco index increased by 1.1% between January 2009 and February 2009.
“The monthly increase in the alcoholic beverages and tobacco index was largely driven by monthly increases in beer with 1.5% and tobacco products with 1.2%, mainly cigarettes,” Stats SA reported.
The transport index increased by 1.8% between January 2009 and February 2009, mainly due to a 10.5% increase in the price of petrol.
Hart further added that he believed that another repo rate cut was still on the cards when the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meets in April.
On Tuesday the Reserve Bank announced a 100 basis points cut in the repo rate.
Article published courtesy of BuaNews
