Consumer Prices Reach Highest Level in 15 Months... Increases Seen in Rice, Apples, and Petroleum (Comprehensive)

[Financial News] Last month, the consumer price index surged to its highest level in 15 months. The rise was driven by simultaneous increases in prices of agricultural, livestock, and fisheries products, processed foods, and petroleum products.
According to the 'October Consumer Price Trends' released by the Ministry of Data and Statistics on the 4th, last month's Consumer Price Index (CPI, 2020=100) stood at 117.42, up 2.4% from the same month last year. This marks the highest level since July of last year (2.6%).
The consumer price growth rate remained in the 2% range in June and July, slowed to 1.7% in August, but rebounded to 2.1% in September and 2.4% in October, marking two consecutive months of increases.
By category, prices of agricultural, livestock, and fisheries products rose by 2.3%, contributing 0.25 percentage points to overall inflation.
Notably, livestock products increased by 5.3% and fisheries products by 5.9%.
Significant price hikes were recorded for rice (21.3%), apples (21.6%), pork (6.1%), domestic beef (4.6%), mackerel (11.0%), glutinous rice (45.5%), and eggs (6.9%).
Lee Doo-won, Director of Economic Statistics Review at the Ministry of Data and Statistics, explained, "Recent frequent rainfall delayed the shipment of rice, leading to a larger increase," adding, "For fruit, frequent rain also delayed the shipment of apples, which further expanded the price increase."
Among industrial products (up 2.3%), processed foods rose by 3.5%. Bread (6.6%) and coffee (14.7%) led the increase. Petroleum products climbed by 4.8%, marking the largest rise in eight months since February (6.3%). Diesel prices rose by 8.2% and gasoline by 4.5%.
Service prices increased by 2.5% year-on-year. While public services rose by only 1.2%, personal services saw a significant increase of 3.4%.
Dining-out prices rose by 3.0%, and personal services excluding dining out increased by 3.6%. This is largely attributed to increased demand for accommodation and travel.
The core inflation index, based on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) method and excluding food and energy, rose by 2.2% year-on-year, the highest since July last year (2.2%).
The domestic core inflation index, which excludes agricultural products and petroleum, increased by 2.5%.
The living price index, reflecting consumer-perceived inflation, rose by 2.5%.
However, the fresh food index fell by 0.8%. While prices of fresh fish and shellfish surged by 6.2% and fresh fruit by 10.8%, fresh vegetables dropped sharply by 14.1%.
imne@fnnews.com Hong Ye-ji Reporter