Inflation in the country has come down for the second time in a row this month, says the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.
Accordingly, the Central Bank says that surface inflation, measured by the annual point change in the Colombo Consumer Price Index, has decreased from 66.0% last October to 61.0% in November 2022.
Food inflation dropped to 73.7% this month from 85.6% last October.
Inflation in non-food items decreased to 54.5% in November from 56.3% in October.
The decline seen in the CPI index’s monthly change last October further decreased by 0.50% in November.
This was mainly due to a 0.53% monthly drop in the prices of food items.
Accordingly, there were significant declines in the prices of chicken, fresh fish and dried fruit within the food category. However, milk powder prices rose during this month.
Meanwhile, the non-food category recorded a monthly increase in November due to higher prices of items in the health sector, i.e. private hospital charges, purchases of medical/pharmacy products and textile and footwear sub-categories.
However, during November, the decrease in the prices of items in the sub-categories of transport (petrol and diesel) and housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels (maintenance/repairs, LP gas) led to a significant reduction in the overall monthly prices increase in non-food items.
Also, annual average inflation rose to 42.6% this month from 38.3% last October.
Core inflation on an annualized point basis, which reflects the underlying inflation in the economy, decreased to 49.4% in November 2022 from 49.7% in October 2022.
Annual average core inflation rose to 31.4% in November 2022 from 27.8% in October 2022.
