Agriculture, Fisheries, and Livestock – Tobacco Customer Prices Rise 0.5% in February

February customer prices sharply rose with the influence of New Year’s holidays.

Public rates, including mobile communication rate, decreased, but agriculture, fisheries, livestock, and tobacco prices increased high.

National Statistical Office (NSO) reported on the 28th that February customer prices rose 0.5 Per Cent more than last month, and the result is 2.6 Per Cent higher than February last year. Price-rise rate in comparison of the previous month was little lower than February (0.6%), but is still at high level.

In terms of categories, public rates fell 2.0 Per Cent as mobile communication rate decreased 7.0 Per Cent and city gas decreased 9.4 Per Cent. On the other hand, agriculture, fisheries, livestock prices rose 4.1 Per Cent, as tomato price rose 73.2 Per Cent, strawberries 64.0 Per Cent, and chilies 9.4 Per Cent. Industrial products price rose 0.7 Per Cent due to tobacco price- rise, and individual service rates increased by 0.4 Per Cent. Especially, the entire house price rose by 0.4 Per Cent, as leasing price rose 0.5 Per Cent and monthly rental 0.1 Per Cent.

In terms of regions, Pusan, Kwangju, and Ulsan were sharply raised by 0.8 Per Cent higher than last month, Incheon and Daejun 0.5 Per Cent, and Seoul 0.4 Per Cent.

NSO expected, “Customer price rose in February because the New Year’s holidays, but it will stabilize from March.”

However, won-dollar exchange is showing an instable tendency due to weakened yen, and public charges like health insurance fee and estate prices rose to put more pressure on customer prices.

Chan-Sun Hong hcs@donga.com