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S. Korea's consumer prices rise 1.9 pct in April

Xinhua, May 2, 2017 Adjust font size:

South Korea's consumer prices rose 1.9 percent in April from a year earlier, hovering at a relatively high level on expensive crude oil, a government report showed on Tuesday.

The headline inflation, which stayed below 1.5 percent in 2016, rebounded above 2 percent in January, according to Statistics Korea. Since then, the inflation bobbed in and out of 2 percent for the next three months.

Costly crude oil led the accelerated inflation. Oil product prices advanced 11.7 percent in April, raising the overall inflation by 0.48 percentage points. Prices for gasoline and diesel jumped 9.5 percent and 14.1 percent each.

Prices for agricultural, livestock and fishery prices added 4.5 percent in April, after gaining 5.8 percent in the prior month. Livestock product prices rose 8.7 percent, but vegetable prices declined 6 percent.

Services prices picked up 2.2 percent, lifting the overall inflation by 1.21 percentage points.

Core consumer prices, which exclude volatile prices for agricultural and oil products, rose 1.3 percent. The OECD-method core prices excluding energy and food costs gained 1.5 percent, the lowest since December 2014.

The so-called livelihood prices, which include groceries and daily necessities influencing living costs, increased 2.5 percent. The prices stayed above 2 percent for three months to April.

Fresh food prices including fresh vegetables and fruits rose 4.7 percent last month, but it was the lowest increase since August last year. Endit