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Hong Kong's Consumer Price Indices up 2.8 pct in April

Xinhua, May 21, 2015 Adjust font size:

Hong Kong's overall consumer prices rose by 2.8 percent in April over the same month a year earlier, a figure which was significantly smaller than the corresponding increase of 4.5 percent in March, showed data released Thursday by Hong Kong's Census and Statistics Department (C&SD).

It was mainly affected by the government's relief measure of rates concession for April to September while there was no such measure in March, according to the C&SD.

Netting out the effects of all government's one-off relief measures, the year-on-year rate of increase in the Composite CPI, i.e. the underlying inflation rate, in April was 2.4 percent, smaller than that in March, mainly due to the enlarged decreases in the prices of fresh vegetables and the smaller increases in the prices of fresh fruit, said the C&SD.

The data showed that on a seasonally adjusted basis, the average monthly rate of change in the Composite CPI for the 3- month period from February to April was minors 0.2 percent, and the corresponding rate of change for the 3-month period from January to March was 0.2 percent.

Netting out the effects of all government's one-off relief measures, the average monthly rate of increase in the Composite CPI for the 3-month period from February to April was 0.2 percent, the same as that for the 3-month period from January to March.

A government spokesman said that inflationary pressures eased further, with the year-on-year increase in the underlying Composite CPI tapering from 2.8 percent in March to 2.4 percent in April, mainly reflecting the smaller price increase of basic foodstuffs.

The spokesman commented further that looking ahead, given the benign global inflation, lower international energy and food prices as well as modest growth pace of the economy, inflation should remain contained in the near term. The government will continue to monitor the inflation developments closely, particularly its impact on the lower-income people. Endi