Higher prices on takeaway food, house repairs push up February inflation

Prices for private households have been reported to have increased by 7.11% over February 2022, an upward trend that follows the 6.94% in retail price index inflation for January over the same period last year.

The RPI measures monthly price changes in the cost of purchasing a representative basket of consumer goods and services.

The highest annual inflation rates in February 2023 were registered in housing (14.27%) and food (12.19%). On the other hand, the lowest annual inflation rates were registered in water, electricity, gas and fuels (nil) and transport and communication (1.96%.

However, when measured by “impact” – the measure showing the change in inflation as a result of the inclusion of an index – it is food that created the largest upward index on annual inflation (+2.62 percentage points), largely due to higher prices of take-aways.

The second and third largest impacts were measured in the housing index (+1.13 percentage points) and the other goods and services index (+0.65 percentage points), mainly on account of higher prices of house maintenance services and cleaning products, respectively.

On their own, food accounted for 15.6% of the annual RPI increase, while restaurant services and takeaway foods accounted for 5.89% of the total RPI.

But it was the housing index that registered the highest annual inflation rate at 14.27%, of which rent registered an annual rate of 8.85%. Materials for house maintenance registered an annual rate of 13% and services for house maintenance registered an annual rate of 17.39%.