Consumer prices in the UK rose by 3% in January in annual terms, according to the report of the National Statistics Office ONS.
Inflation accelerated from December’s 2.5% and updated the maximum since March.
Analysts polled by Bloomberg had on average forecast a more moderate acceleration in consumer price growth, to 2.8%.
The cost of food and soft drinks rose 3.3% last month after rising 2% a month earlier, while alcohol and tobacco products rose 4.9% (up 5.3% in December) and clothing and footwear rose 1.8% (1.1%). Prices in restaurants and hotels rose by 3.3%, communication services became more expensive by 5.9%, educational services – by 7.5%, medical services – by 5%.
Transport services rose by 1.7% after a 0.6% decline a month earlier, while furniture and household goods rose by 0.5% after a 0.3% decline.
Consumer prices in Britain in January compared to the previous month decreased by 0.1%, while in December the growth was 0.3%.
Prices excluding the cost of food, alcohol, tobacco and energy (core inflation, CPI Core index) increased by 3.7% in annual terms and decreased by 0.4% for the month. In December, the annual rate of increase was 3.2% and the index rose 0.3% on a monthly basis.
Retail price increases (RPI) accelerated last month to 3.6% annualised from December’s 3.5%. This is the indicator used by British employers in salary negotiations. The difference in the dynamics of CPI and RPI indices is due to the inclusion of housing costs in RPI, as well as the different weighting of airfares, insurance and petrol prices.
RPI in January fell by 0.1 per cent on the previous month after rising by 0.3 per cent a month earlier.
