Soaring petrol stokes inflation rate
Statistics New Zealand said today a 20.5 per cent jump in petrol prices made the biggest individual contribution to the consumer price index (CPI) growth of 3.4 per cent.
Government statistician Geoff Bascand said if petrol prices had remained constant from the March 2007 quarter, the CPI would have risen just 2.5 percent. Economists had expected a rise of about 3.5 per cent.
The Reserve Bank is tasked with holding inflation between 1 and 3 per cent on average over the medium-term. The official cash rate is currently 8.25 per cent. The next Reserve Bank OCR decision is due on Thursday, April 24.
For the 2007 calendar year the CPI rose 3.2 per cent.
The CPI is a measure of the price change of goods and services purchased by private New Zealand households. The CPI is produced quarterly from prices gathered in a range of surveys at 15 urban areas.Statistics New Zealand also said today CPI for the March quarter rose 0.7 percent largely due to a 1.8 per cent rise in food prices. The main contribution here came from a 3.6 per cent rise in grocery food prices such as cheese, bread, and butter.
Separately, Statistics New Zealand said food prices rose 0.7 percent in March, largely due to a 3.1 per cent rise in fruit and vegetable prices. This in turn was accentuated by a massive 79.9 per cent rise in tomato prices.
