Malaysia's October inflation rate up 1.1 pct

Source: Xinhua | 2019-11-21

Malaysia's consumer price index (CPI) rose 1.1 percent year-on-year in October, official data showed Wednesday.

Malaysian Statistics Department said in a statement that the increase in the overall index was driven by the spending of alcoholic beverages and tobacco; miscellaneous goods and services; education; food and non-alcoholic beverages.

On a monthly basis, the overall CPI rose 0.2 percent.

In a note Wednesday, MIDF Research said it projected Malaysia's inflation rate to average at 0.6 percent this year, lower than the one percent in 2018.

"We expect food component to provide upside pressure for overall inflation in 2019 driven by low base effect and imported inflation, as Malaysia is a net importer of goods," said the research house.

However, it also anticipated oil price cap to mitigate the upside pressure for overall inflation.

For the period of January to October, the inflation increased 0.6 percent year-on-year, which was equivalent to MIDF forecast.