Price of goods and services remained more or less the same in January this year compared to the previous month, according to the consumer price index published today by the National Statistics Bureau.
Between January 2014 and January 2015, inflation was recorded at 6.2 percent while it was 6.3 percent in between February 2014 and February 2015.
This is the lowest rate recorded since the beginning of 2014.
However, given increase in the price of fuel after several downward revisions, the price of goods and services is also expected to increase. Fuel price increased by Nu 3 a litre in February and therefore, it will have similar impact on prices in Bhutan’s February consumer inflation.
Fuel price will have a direct, immediate impact on prices of food and other commodities since transportation charges also increases when fuel price increases.
This time, both domestic and imported food prices recorded deflation. Domestic food prices deflated to negative 0.15 percent while imported food prices deflated to negative 0.43 percent compared to the previous month.
Price of domestically produced non-food commodities registered a slight decrease from 0.56 percent to 0.21 percent. Imported non-food prices, however, increased from 0.20 percent o 1.19 percent.
The purchasing power of ngultrum decreased by around 6 percent in the last one year. This means, what Nu 100 can buy today would have cost you only Nu 94 to by the same amount of commodity last year.
