Headline inflation as measured by the yearon-year change in the National Consumer Price Index (NCPI, 2013=100) increased to 2.4 per cent in February 2019 from 1.2 per cent in January 2019 mainly due to the base effect. Meanwhile, year-on-year Non-food inflation increased to 6.7 per cent in February 2019 from 6.5 per cent in January 2019 while Food inflation also increased to -2.9 per cent in February 2019 from -4.8 per cent in January 2019.

The change in the NCPI measured on an annual average basis marginally decreased to 1.7 per cent in February 2019 from 1.8 per cent in January 2019.

The month on month change of the NCPI was -0.5 per cent in February 2019. This was mainly due to decrease in the prices of the items in the Food category where vegetables, green chillies, rice, coconuts, limes, big onion and banana recorded significant decreases. However, on month on month basis, the prices of the items in the Non-food category increased among which the Education sub-category recorded the highest increase. Further, Health; Transport; Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco; and Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels sub-categories also reported increases during the month.

The core inflation, which reflects the underlying inflation in the economy, increased from 5.1 per cent in January 2019 to 5.5 per cent in February 2019 on year-on-year basis. Meanwhile, annual average core inflation also increased from 2.7 per cent in January 2019 to 3.0 per cent in February 2019.