KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 23): Malaysia’s inflation in November 2022 increased by 4% year-on-year with food inflation continuing to be the main driver, said the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM).

“This increase was partly driven by the increase in the price of cooked food, mainly chicken and flour-based [food],” it said. CPI grew at the same rate in October from a year earlier.

DOSM said that in November, the food and non-alcoholic beverages group continued to record increases to 7.3% versus 7.1% in October.

Apart from food, DOSM said restaurants and hotels continued to show an increase to 7% as against October’s 6.8%.

“However, the slower increase in inflation as compared to October 2022 for transport (5.0%) and furnishings, household equipment and routine household maintenance (3.8%) to a certain extent has eased the national inflation,” it said.

Core inflation — which measures changes in the prices of all goods and services, excluding volatile items of fresh food as well as administered prices of goods by the government — grew slightly to 4.2% in November compared with 4.1% in October.

For the first 11 months of 2022, DOSM said inflation has increased 3.4% as compared to 2.3% for the same period in 2021. On a monthly basis, it said the inflation in November 2022 recorded 0.3% as compared to 0.2% in October 2022.

In comparison to other countries, DOSM said Malaysia recorded a lower inflation rate compared to the eurozone (10%), US (7.1%), Philippines (8%), Thailand (5.6%), Indonesia (5.4%) and South Korea (5%).

Domestically, DOSM highlighted four states in the country showed increases above the national inflation level of 4% in November 2022, which are Putrajaya (7.9%), Selangor (4.8%), Sarawak (4.7%) and Johor (4.2%). Labuan recorded the lowest increase of 2.4%.