The overall rate of inflation as measured by the National Consumer Price Index (NCPI) on Year-on-Year basis has been decreased to 2.5% in March 2024, compared to 5.1% in February 2024, the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS) revealed in its latest report.Meanwhile, the contributions to the inflation rate of March 2024 from the food group and non-food group are 2.1% and 0.4% respectively. On a monthly basis, the Year-on-Year inflation of the food group remained unchanged in March 2024 at 5.0% which was reported in February 2024 and the Year-on-Year inflation of the non-food group decreased to 0.7% in March 2024 from 5.1% in February 2024, according to the report.The decreases in index values of non-food groups in March 2024 compared to the previous month was mainly due to the price decreases in groups of items ‘Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other fuels’ (Electricity bill) and ‘Clothing and Footwear’.

However, price increase in groups of items were reported for ‘Alcoholic Beverages, Tobacco and Narcotics and Restaurants and Hotels. Core inflation, which reflects the underlying inflation by excluding volatile items of food, energy and transport groups in the economy as measured by the Year-on-Year change based on NCPI for the month of March 2024 has been increased to 3.4% from 2.7% reported in month of February 2024.