S. Korea's inflation stays in zero territory for 4th straight month in Jan

[Photo by Kim Ho-young]

South Korea’s headline inflation gained marginally under 1 percent despite the spike in fresh food prices from exceptionally cold wave as consumption stayed tepid from protracted virus mitigation measures.

The consumer price index added 0.6 percent in January from a year ago after a 0.5 percent gain in the previous month, according to Statistics Korea on Tuesday. Against a month ago, inflation rose 0.8 percent.

Inflation growth has stayed subdued below 1 percent since October, except for fresh food prices that have continued climbing amid lengthy cold snap coupled with outbreaks of highly pathogenic bird flu.

Agricultural, livestock and fishery product prices soared 10.0 percent, accelerating further from a 9.7 percent jump in the previous month.

Livestock prices soared 11.5 percent, the sharpest gain since June 2014, mainly due to egg supply shortage from recent outbreaks of bird flu across the country. Egg prices jumped 15.2 percent, the fastest since March last year. Prices of pork were up 18.0 percent and beef 10.0 percent.

Prices of agricultural product added 11.2 percent and fresh vegetables 3.0 percent. Green onion prices skyrocketed 76.9 percent, onion 60.3 percent, and rice 12.3 percent.

Industrial goods prices, however, fell 0.6 percent on year on softened global oil prices. Petroleum prices plunged 8.6 percent, while processed food prices went up by 1.6 percent on high food ingredient costs. Utilities cost dropped 5.0 percent.

Service prices gained 0.4 percent. Private service prices rose 1.5 percent in sync with a rise in the minimum wage. Dining-out cost grew 1.1 percent.

Public service prices declined 2.1 percent from the free high school education program and mobile phone bill subsidy program.

Home rent prices added 0.7 percent, extending its gains to the ninth month in a row.

The CPI without food and energy, the standard by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), rose 0.4 percent, slightly down from December’s 0.5 percent. Core inflation, excluding volatile agricultural product and oil prices, gained 0.9 percent, the same as a month ago.

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