Canada’s annual inflation fee cooled to 2.8 per cent in February, helped by slower progress in the price of mobile providers, groceries and web entry providers, Statistics Canada stated Tuesday.
Economists had largely anticipated the speed to rise and undo a number of the yr’s early progress.
Lease and mortgage curiosity prices continued to be major drivers of the inflation fee, the company stated. In the meantime, fuel costs ticked up 0.8 per cent in February year-over-year after a 4 per cent decline in January.
Canadians who signed up for a brand new mobile phone plan in February paid 26.5 per cent lower than they’d have on the similar time final yr — this was as a consequence of decrease costs for brand new plans and will increase in information allowances.
For the primary time in additional than two years, grocery costs elevated at a slower tempo than the headline inflation fee, StatsCan stated.
This was due to what economists name a base-year impact (the affect of evaluating costs in a given month to the identical month a yr earlier).
However slower value progress does not imply that meals is not getting costlier. Whereas the inflation fee for contemporary fruit (-2.6 per cent), processed meat (-0.6 per cent) and fish (-1.3 per cent) all declined, groceries costs are nonetheless rising.
Extra to return.
