These are the Singapore inflation rates for 2011:
January: 5.5%
February: 5.0%
March: 5.0%
April: 4.5%
May: 4.5%
June: 5.2%
July: 5.4%
August: 5.7%
September: 5.5%
October: 5.4%
Transport
and Housing are once again leading the pack, rising by 10.5% and
9.9% respectively year on year. The inflation was as expected in my
previous post, most probably due to the increase in food and housing inflation. Surprisingly, clothing & footwear inflation turned negative. I didn't recall any sales though.
Inflation however may go up back to the inflation rate in August, looking at the recent happenings. Another year of high inflation.
4 comments:
I would thought the core inflation rate used by MAS would be a better measure. The main contributors to this headline rate are COE prices and high imputed rents for owner properties, neither of which affect households on a month-to-month, or even year to year basis. Afterall, most households (60%) don't own a car and most also don't rent a place. The corresponding core inflation rate is a less scary and more manageable 2%ish.
I disagree because of 2 reasons.
1) Based on my past years of tracking inflation, the housing inflation rate is affected by the electricity and water tariff that households pay. Furthermore, it also indirectly tells you how much your property tax will rise.
2) Transport inflation is also indirectly affected by the price of oil and I did see a small corelation between the rise in public transport prices and the inflation.
Therefore, I do not believe that the core inflation will tell the whole picture.
You mention there is correlation between public transport fares and inflation. PT fares are a much smaller weight than private car costs in the basket. So the latter has more influence. Anyway PT fares over past 5 years have risen much less than inflation (fare reduction in 08 or 09), so in real terms, PT fares have dropped, but of course not many can accept this has occurred.
You're right that the COE component is much bigger than the PT cost but I do not agree with the reduction in PT cost.
PT cost reduction? Not if you do not need to switch between different types of transport or need to travel long distance.
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