SEOUL: Due to ongoing plunging oil prices, South Korea’s inflation rate grew just less than one percent for the second consecutive month in January.
According to government data, consumer prices in January rose 0.8 percent from a year earlier, unchanged from a yearly gain in December, state-run Statistics Korea said.
“Weak global energy prices caused utilities, petroleum products costs to fall, as well as transportation-related outlays in January that offset the surge in cigarette prices,” Kim Bo-Kyoung, a senior Statistics Korea was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency.
South Korea raised cigarette prices by an average 80 percent starting this year.
Kim said that January’s numbers are not any indication of a deflation, noting that aside from oil and transportation, prices generally went up. Oil prices plunged 20.4 percent on-year.
