S. Korea's consumer prices unchanged in October

Arirang News 2019-11-01

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South Korea's consumer inflation had for the first time earlier this year... turned negative, leading to fears of deflation.
But for October, it was back up... to zero.
Officials say they don't expect it to go back into minus territory in the near future.
Hong Yoo has the details.
Statistics Korea says the consumer inflation rate saw a slight increase but it remained at 0 percent compared to last year.
"The Consumer price index for October has gone up 0-point-2 percent compared to September to 105-point-46. And compared to same month last year, it remains the same."
In September, the nation's consumer price growth had dropped into the negative range for the first time on record, at minus point-four percent compared to the same month last year.
It was also the longest period that South Korea has seen a consumer inflation rate below 1 percent since the ten months from February to November 2015.
"The growth was lower than what everyone had anticipated because the economy still remains stagnant.
The low inflation rate is partly due to the low prices of supplies such as oil and agricultural goods."
Core inflation excluding agricultural and petroleum product prices rose 0-point-8 percent from a year earlier
And utility prices rose 1-point-5 percent on-year in October while prices of agricultural, livestock and fisheries products fell 3.8 percent.
But Statistics Korea says the reversing base effect and upcoming New Year will increase prices for certain sectors so consumer prices won't fall into negative growth in the near future.
Hong Yoo, Arirang News.

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