The Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice (CSO) yes­ter­day re­port­ed that the rate of in­fla­tion in T&T for Jan­u­ary 2025 was 0.7 per cent.

In a news re­lease, the CSO said the in­fla­tion rate for the com­par­a­tive pe­ri­od (Jan­u­ary 2024/Jan­u­ary 2023) was 0.3 per cent.

The sta­tis­ti­cal body said the 0.7 per cent in­fla­tion rate for Jan­u­ary 2025 rep­re­sents an in­crease from the pre­vi­ous pe­ri­od (De­cem­ber 2024/De­cem­ber 2023) of 0.5 per cent.

The CSO ex­plained that the cur­rent in­fla­tion rate mea­sures the per­cent­age change in the all items in­dex for the month of Jan­u­ary 2025 over Jan­u­ary 2024.

The all items in­dex cal­cu­lat­ed from the prices col­lect­ed for the month of Jan­u­ary 2025 was 124.9, rep­re­sent­ing an in­crease of 0.2 points or 0.2 per cent above the All Items In­dex for De­cem­ber 2024.

The in­dex for food and non-al­co­holic bev­er­ages in­creased from 152.4 in De­cem­ber 2024 to 153.2 in Jan­u­ary 2025, re­flect­ing an in­crease of 0.5 per cent, said the CSO.

“Con­tribut­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly to this in­crease was the gen­er­al up­ward move­ment in the prices of cu­cum­ber, fresh carite, ochroes, pump­kin, pi­men­to, gar­lic, fresh king fish, frozen whole chick­en, soya bean oil and cab­bage.

“How­ev­er, the full im­pact of these price in­creas­es was off­set by the gen­er­al de­creas­es in the prices of toma­toes, fresh whole chick­en, Irish pota­toes, or­anges, car­rots, green sweet pep­pers, eggs, ice cream, onions and cel­ery.

“A fur­ther re­view of the da­ta for Jan­u­ary 2025 com­pared with De­cem­ber 2024 re­flect­ed in­creas­es in the sub-in­dices for al­co­hol and to­bac­co of 0.3 per cent, cloth­ing and footwear of 0.3 per cent, health of 0.1 per cent, trans­port of 0.1 per cent, recre­ation and cul­ture of 0.3 per cent, ho­tels, cafés and restau­rants of 0.1 per cent and mis­cel­la­neous good and ser­vices of 0.4 per cent,” said the CSO.

This pe­ri­od al­so showed a de­crease in the sub-in­dex for fur­nish­ings, house­hold equip­ment and rou­tine main­te­nance of the house of -0.4 per cent. All oth­er sec­tions re­mained un­changed.

The gov­ern­ment sta­tis­ti­cal agency in­di­cat­ed that rate of in­crease in the prices of food and non-al­co­holic prices be­tween Jan­u­ary 2024 and Jan­u­ary 2025 was 3.93 per cent, with the in­dex in­creas­ing from 147.4 in Jan­u­ary 2024 to 153.2 in Jan­u­ary 2025.

In the De­cem­ber mon­e­tary po­lice an­nounce­ment, the Cen­tral Bank said, “Head­line in­fla­tion re­mained very low, and was record­ed at 0.5 per cent in No­vem­ber, up from 0.2 per cent in the pre­vi­ous month. Core in­fla­tion, which ex­cludes food prices, was un­changed at -0.3 per cent while food in­fla­tion rose to 3.1 per cent from 2.4 per cent over the two-month pe­ri­od.”