Inflation up 1.85% in November

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Prices of most goods and services were notably higher in November, driven mainly by stronger consumption demand during Ramadhan, the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) said on Monday.

BPS reported that inflation, as measured by the consumer price index, rose 1.85 percent in November from the level in October, sending the annualized inflation level to a double-digit rate of 10.48 percent.

Agency chairwoman Soedarti Surbakti said the government's single-digit inflation target for 2002 was unlikely to be met as prices tended to rise during year-end festivities.

"As in the previous years, inflation rates tend to go up in the last two months of the year, so there is a possibility that we'll miss the target, although it would not be by far," she told reporters, referring to this year's government inflation target of 9 percent.

Soedarti said that all price indexes recorded an increase, led by a 5.03 percent growth in basic food index, followed by a 1.68 percent surge in the cigarette and tobacco sector, and 0.90 percent in the clothes sector. The largest shares to November's inflation was the food sector and cigarette and tobacco sector.

Total inflation after eleven months of the year stands at 8.72 percent. In October, the index rose 0.54 percent from September and was up 10.33 percent from a year earlier.

Maintaining low inflation will provide leeway for Bank Indonesia to lower its bench-mark interest rates. This would prove helpful so as the government could limit its spending in servicing its domestic debt payments.