West Bay skyline (Photo: Qassim Rehmatullah)
DOHA: The prices of most items in Qatar have stabilised, reinforcing the claims that the country has successfully overcome the initial impact of the ongoing unjust blockade by four Arab countries, who abruptly severed ties with Qatar in early June last year, and stopped exporting all of their goods, including daily consumable essentials.
Qatar’s monthly inflation, based on consumer price index (CPI) in December, 2017, edged up only marginally by 0.1 percent compared to previous month.
The surge in prices of some items were almost offset by the fall in the prices of other goods, such as food and beverages, clothing and footwear, whose prices declined by varying degrees in December compared to previous month. Prices of other miscellaneous goods and services, housing, water, electricity, fuel and other items remained stable in December against November 2017.
According to data released yesterday by the Ministry Development Planning & Statistics (MDPS), the CPI in December 2017 reached to 108.9 points (base year is 2013) showing an increase of 0.1 percent against the CPI of November 2017. When compared on year-on-year (y-o-y) basis to CPI of December 2016, the index has increased by only 0.6 percent.
A month-on-month(m-o-m) of CPI for December, 2017 compared with November, 2017 CPI, showed that there was one main group namely: “Transport” where respective indices in December increased by 1.6 percent. A decrease in prices was also noticed in “Food and Beverages” by 0.8 percent, “Clothing and Footwear” by 0.1 percent. And indices of other group, which include “Tobacco”, “Housing, Water, Electricity and Gas”, “Health”, “Communication”, “Recreation and Culture”, “Education”, “Restaurants and Hotels”, and “Miscellaneous Goods and Services” remained flat at the last month’s price level.
To analyse the annual change in prices, a comparison of the CPI, December 2017 with the CPI, December 2016, a marginal rise of 0.6 percent was recorded in the general index (CPI). This (y-o-y) price increase was primarily attributed to the six groups, namely: “Transport” by 8.5 percent, “Food and Beverages” by 5.6 percent, “Health” by 3.6 percent, “Education” by 1.0 percent, “Miscellaneous Goods and Services” by 0.6 percent, and “Clothing and Footwear” by 0.1 percent. Also there has been a decrease in price levels in four groups, namely: “Housing, Water, Electricity and other Fuel” by 5.8 percent, “Communication” by 1.1 percent, “Recreation and Culture” by 0.6 percent, and “Furniture and Household Equipment” by 0.1 percent. No changes were recorded in “Tobacco” and “Restaurants and Hotels” groups.
The CPI of December, 2017 excluding “Housing, Water, Electricity and other Fuel” group stands at 108.9 showing an increase of 0.2 percent when compared to the index of November 2017, and a 2.5 percent when compared to the CPI of December 2016.
