KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's rate of inflation slowed to 2% year-on-year in July 2023, its lowest so far in 2023, amid a slower increase in the costs of restaurants and hotels and food and non-alcoholic beverages.
This was slightly lower than a median forecast of 2.1% by a Reuters poll of economists, and lower than 2.4% recorded in the previous month.
The monthly headline inflation in July eased to 0.1% as against 0.2% in June while core inflation increased 2.8% as compared to 3.1% in the preceding month.
In a statement, the National Statistics Department said the food and non-alcoholic beverages group, which contributed to 29.5% of the total consumer price index (CPI), recorded a moderate increase of 4.4% while the restaurants and hotels category registered a 5% increase.
"The increase in the component of food at home was mainly driven by the subgroup of meat (5.5%); rice, bread and other cereals (4.5%); milk, cheese and eggs (4.3%) and sugar, jam, honey, chocolate and confectionery (3.5%)," it said.
In addition, the component of food away from home also slowed to 6.2% as compared to 6.8% in June 2023.
Meanwhile, inflation for restaurants and hotels rose more slowly due to the slower increase in the subgroup of expenditure in restaurants and cafés at 4.9%.
The subgroup of accommodation services however registered a higher increase of 5.7% as compared of 4.7% in June.
The cost of transport however contracted 0.4% in July, which marked the first negative growth since March 2023.
According to the Statistics Department, this was mainly owing to the 0.8% decrease in the operation of personal transport equipment subgroup.
In this subgroup, unleaded petrol RON97 registered negative 28.8% growth in July 2023 (RM3.37 per litre) as against July 2022 (RM4.73 per litre).
