The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) announced on Wednesday that the July inflation rate stood at 0.28 percent, safely within the 2018 state budget projection. The figure brings the year-to-date (ytd) inflation to 2.18 percent and 3.18 percent year-on-year (yoy).

July inflation was slightly higher than the inflation figure in the same month last year, which was recorded at 0.22 percent, even though both are still lower than the 2016 figure, which was 0.69 percent.

The increase in food prices, especially eggs and chicken meat, are the major contributors to the inflation, BPS head Suhariyanto told the press conference, adding that the prices of other commodities such as red chili and meat were deflating.

“Therefore, we can conclude that the July inflation remains under the control of the government,” he said.

Meanwhile, core inflation in July was the highest recorded since January at 0.41 percent, bringing the ytd figure to 1.78 percent and yoy figure to 2.87 percent.

Suhariyanto attributed this to the recovery of household consumption and purchasing power. He also said that the rupiah depreciation might not affect core inflation. (bbn)