Toronto, Jan. 19 (China News Service) -- Statistics Canada released data on January 19 showing that inflationary pressures in the country persist. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for December 2021 rose 4.8% year-on-year, the highest increase since 1991.
The Bureau of Statistics said inflationary pressures came from unfavorable weather conditions and supply chain bottlenecks. After removing the fuel factor, the CPI increased by 4.0% year-on-year.
But compared to November, the December CPI fell by 0.1%. This is the first month-on-month decrease in CPI since December 2020.
Prices rose in all eight sectors covered by official statistics, with transportation and housing-related prices contributing the most to the rise in the CPI. Overall CPI grew faster than in November, in part due to higher prices for food, passenger cars, and home and mortgage insurance.
Food and grocery prices rose 5.7 percent year-on-year in December, the biggest increase since November 2011.
For the full year, Canada's 2021 CPI rose 3.4% from the previous year, the fastest growth rate since 1991. Commodity prices rose 4.7 per cent and service prices rose 2.3 per cent. Gasoline prices rose 31.2 percent to their highest level since 1981.
The Bureau of Statistics and Statistics believes that the continued development of the COVID-19 epidemic, especially the emergence and spread of new variants of the virus, may have an impact on the prices of goods and services this year.
Since the inflation rate has been higher than the inflation control target set by the Bank of Canada of about 2% for 9 consecutive months, the major media generally quoted analysts as expecting that the Bank of Canada is likely to raise interest rates for the first time since the emergence of the epidemic in the near future. (End)
Source: China News Network