South Korea's consumer prices rose 1.9 percent in June from a year earlier, staying around 2 percent for the first six months of this year, a government report showed Tuesday.
The consumer price inflation hovered around 2 percent, posting 2.0 percent in January, 1.9 percent in February, 2.2 percent in March, 1.9 percent in April and 2.0 percent in May respectively, according to Statistics Korea.
Prices for fresh food, which includes vegetable and fruit as well as fish and shellfish, jumped 10.6 percent last month due to a long spell of dry weather. Fresh fruit index surged 21.4 percent in June from a year ago, marking the highest increase in over six years.
Oil product prices gained 2.8 percent, but prices for agricultural, livestock and fishery products advanced 7.6 percent, raising the overall headline inflation by 0.59 percentage points.
The farms goods prices rose at the fastest pace this year. The agricultural product prices jumped 7 percent, with those for livestock and fishery products picking up 8.6 percent and 7.8 percent each. Egg prices soared 69.3 percent, with those for squid, potato, tomato and watermelon recording a double-digit rise.
Gasoline and diesel prices added 1.6 percent and 2.2 percent respectively, with those for LPG used for passenger cars and city gas jumping over 10 percent.
Private services prices rose 2.3 percent, the lowest increase since December 2015, but it lifted the overall headline inflation by 0.74 percentage points.
Core consumer prices, which exclude volatile agricultural and oil products, gained 1.4 percent in June from a year earlier. The OECD-method core prices, which exclude volatile food and energy costs, rose 1.5 percent.
Latest comments