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The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose to 5.7% in December, up from 5.6% in November, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Month-on-month average prices increased by 0.2% between November and December.<\/p>\n
The food and non-alcoholic beverages index increased by 0.2% between November and December.<\/p>\n
The following food and non-alcoholic beverages index increased: fruit (4.9%), milk, eggs and cheese (0.8%), hot beverages (0.8%), cold beverages (0.8%), oils and fats (0.7%), meat (0.4%), and bread and cereals (0.2%).<\/p>\n
Housing and utilities increased by 0.5% between November 2012 and December 2012, mainly due to a 0.8% increase in actual rentals for housing and a 0.7% increase in owners\u2019 equivalent rent.<\/p>\n
Analysts had been expecting CPI to increase by 5.7% in December.<\/p>\n
According to Stats SA, the official average annual inflation rate was 5.6% for the year 2012.<\/p>\n
The country\u2019s consumer prices edged higher during December as the Reserve Bank\u2019s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) holds its first two-day meeting for the year. The meeting will conclude on Thursday with an announcement on interest rates.<\/p>\n
The central bank uses CPI to target inflation.<\/p>\n
In a research note, Nedbank economists said they expected the bank to keep rates neutral for most of 2013 in order to balance weak growth prospects and rising inflationary pressures.<\/p>\n
At the last MPC meeting of 2012 in November, the committee kept rates unchanged at 5%. \u2013 SAnews.gov.za<\/p>\n
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The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose to 5.7% in December, up from 5.6% in November, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) said on Wednesday. Month-on-month average prices increased by 0.2% between November and December. The food and non-alcoholic beverages index increased by 0.2% between November and December. The following food and non-alcoholic beverages index increased: fruit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[1289,5],"class_list":{"0":"post-17514","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-mype","8":"tag-port-elizabeth-2","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17514\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}