AFP
Singapore’s inflation rate climbed to its highest level in 28 years in 2008, with the poor being the hardest hit, the statistics department said Monday.
The 6.5 percent rise in the consumer price index last year was more than triple the 2.1 percent increase in 2007, it said in a report.
It was the highest since inflation hit 8.2 percent in 1981, according to data from the statistics department’s website.
Singapore’s lowest 20-percent income group experienced a higher inflation rate of 7.4 percent last year compared with higher wage earners because of dearer food, housing and electricity costs, the department said.
Economists said inflation is likely to ease this year as Singapore faces what could be its worst recession since independence because of the global economic downturn.
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Singapore’s poorest hit hardest by rising inflation
DPA
Singapore’s poorest were hit hardest by rising prices for food, housing and electricity in 2008, as the city-state’s inflation climbed to its highest level in 28 years, data published by the Department of Statistics on Monday said. Singapore’s consumer price index (CPI) for general households rose by 6.5 per cent in 2008, the highest level since 1981 when it came up to 8.2 per cent.
It was more than triple the 2.1-per-cent increase of 2007.
For 2008, Singapore households in the lowest 20 per cent income group experienced the highest inflation rate of 7.4 per cent.
The inflation rate for the middle 60 per cent and the top 20 per cent income groups reached 6.4 per cent and 6.1 per cent respectively.
The CPI for the lowest wage earners “rose faster … due mainly to dearer food as well as increased accommodation costs and electricity tariffs which have relatively higher weights in the CPI for the low income group,” the department said.