Central Bank of Sri Lanka : Inflation in February 2021 - CCPI

CCPI based Inflation increased to 3.3 per cent in February 2021

Headline Inflation

Year-on-year Inflation : 3.3%

Annual Average Inflation : 4.1%

Monthly Change : 0.31%

Core Inflation

Year-on-year Inflation : 2.6%

Annual Average Inflation : 3.0%

Monthly Change : 0.1%

Headline inflation, as measured by the year-on-year (Y-o-Y) change in the Colombo Consumer Price Index (CCPI, 2013=100)1 increased to 3.3 per cent in February 2021 from 3.0 per cent in January 2021. This was driven by monthly increase of prices of items in both Food and Non-food categories. Meanwhile, Food inflation (Y-o-Y) increased to 7.9 per cent in February 2021 from 6.8 per cent in January 2021. However, Non-food inflation (Y-o-Y) decreased marginally to 1.3 per cent in February 2021 from 1.4 per cent in January 2021.

The change in the CCPI measured on an annual average basis decreased to 4.1 per cent in February 2021 from 4.3 per cent in January 2021.

Monthly change of CCPI recorded at 0.31 per cent in February 2021. This was due to price increases observed in items of both Food and Non-food categories. Moreover, monthly changes of Food and Non-food categories recorded at 0.23 per cent and 0.08 per cent, respectively, in February 2021. Accordingly, within the Food category, prices of vegetables, green chilli, chicken and eggs increased in February 2021. However, price of potato recorded a decline during the month. Meanwhile, prices of items in the Non-Food categoryrecorded an increase during the month mainly due to price increases observed in the Transport (tyres, tubes and spare parts) and Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels (maintenance/ reconstruction) sub-categories.

The core inflation (Y-o-Y), which reflects the underlying inflation in the economy, decreased marginally to 2.6 per cent in February 2021 from 2.7 per cent in January 2021. Moreover, annual average core inflation also decreased marginally to 3.0 per cent in February 2021 from 3.1 per cent in January 2021.

1The Colombo Consumer Price Index (CCPI, 2013=100) is compiled by the Department of Census and Statistics.

Data Annexure:

Table 1: Movements of the CCPI

Base: 2013 = 100

Year	Month	Index Number	Monthly Percentage Change	Year-on-Year Percentage Change	Annual Average Percentage Change
CCPI	CCPI (Core)	CCPI	CCPI (Core)	CCPI	CCPI (Core)	CCPI	CCPI (Core)
2019	January February March April May June July August September October November December	127.4 126.8 126.6 127.0 129.0 130.2 130.0 130.1 131.1 131.3 131.7 132.4	132.5 132.6 133.0 133.1 134.2 134.4 134.6 134.6 135.2 135.2 135.5 135.0	0.9 -0.5 -0.2 0.3 1.6 0.9 -0.2 0.1 0.8 0.2 0.3 0.5	2.9 0.1 0.3 0.1 0.8 0.1 0.1 0.0 0.4 0.0 0.2 -0.4	3.7 4.0 4.3 4.5 5.0 3.8 3.3 3.4 5.0 5.4 4.4 4.8	5.5 5.4 5.6 5.5 6.2 5.8 5.7 5.6 5.6 5.5 5.1 4.8	4.1 4.1 4.1 4.1 4.2 4.2 4.0 3.8 3.9 4.0 4.1 4.3	3.7 3.8 4.0 4.2 4.4 4.7 4.8 5.0 5.1 5.3 5.4 5.5
2020	January February March April May June July August September October November December	134.6 134.6 133.4 133.6 134.2 135.3 135.4 135.4 136.3 136.5 137.1 138.0	136.5 136.9 136.9 137.2 138.1 138.6 138.9 138.9 139.1 139.2 139.6 139.7	1.7 0.0 -0.9 0.1 0.4 0.8 0.1 0.0 0.7 0.1 0.4 0.7	1.1 0.3 0.0 0.2 0.7 0.4 0.2 0.0 0.1 0.1 0.3 0.1	5.7 6.2 5.4 5.2 4.0 3.9 4.2 4.1 4.0 4.0 4.1 4.2	3.0 3.2 2.9 3.1 2.9 3.1 3.2 3.2 2.9 3.0 3.0 3.5	4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.7 4.7 4.8 4.8 4.7 4.6 4.6 4.6	5.3 5.1 4.9 4.7 4.4 4.2 4.0 3.8 3.6 3.4 3.2 3.1
2021	January February	138.7 139.1	140.2 140.4	0.5 0.3	0.4 0.1	3.0 3.3	2.7 2.6	4.3 4.1	3.1 3.0

Source: Department of Census and Statistics