BANGKOK, Oct 2 – Thailand’s Commerce Ministry has lowered the consumer price index of inflation for this year from 2.8-3.4 per cent to 2.1-2.6 per cent due to the decline Dubai oil price, the strengthened baht and the government’s measures to reduce the cost of living.
Srirat Rastapana, Permanent Secretary for commerce, said yesterday that September inflation inched up by 0.16 per cent month-on-month, and by 1.42 per cent compared to September last year.
Prices of fresh food, rice, eggs, pork, beef, fish, some kind of seafood, cooking gas, electricity and liquor have increased by 0.16 per cent and non-food goods by 0.15 per cent, she said.
Inflation in the first nine months of the year was 2.36 per cent, lower than the previous year, she said, adding that cooking gas price increase at 50 satang per month would affect inflation at only 0.006 per cent per month, or 0.24 per cent in the last four months of this year.
