Inflation up 1.4% in January

Food prices spiked 17% during the month.

Overall consumer prices rose 1.4% YoY in January, smaller than the corresponding increase of 2.9% in December 2019, according to figures from the Census and Statistics Department (C&SD).

This is attributed to the government’s payment of public housing rentals and waiver of two-thirds of rent for tenants of Group B estates by the Hong Kong Housing Society in January 2020. They also cited the additional gGovernment’s provision of electricity charge subsidy starting from January 2020.

Netting out the effects of all gGovernment’s one-off relief measures, composite consumer price index (CPI) in January was 3.7% YoY larger than that in December 2019 (2.9%), thanks to the enlarged increases in the charges for package tours and prices of pork around the Lunar New Year.

C&SD noted that the underlying consumer price inflation rate went up to 3.7% in January, distorted by enlarged year-on-year increases in charges for package tours and prices of basic foodstuffs around the Lunar New Year.

Furthermore, the rate of change in the composite CPI for the three-month period ending January was down 0.5%, whilst the corresponding rate of change for the three-month period ended last December 2019 was 0.1%.

Netting out the effects of all government’s one-off relief measures, the corresponding rates of increase were 0.3% and 0.1%.

Amongst sectors price hikes were seen in food (excluding meals bought away from home) (17%), miscellaneous services (4.8%), miscellaneous goods (3.6%), meals bought away from home (2.2%) and transport (1.8%).

On the other hand, those that posted declines in prices over the same period are electricity, gas and water (-16.0%); clothing and footwear (-5.5%); housing (-3.0%); durable goods (-2.7%) as well as alcoholic drinks and tobacco (-1.5%).