Saudi inflation shot up to 1.6 percent in February, fueled by higher gasoline and food prices, the General Authority for Statistics, also known as GASTAT, said in a press statement.
Inflation for January stood at 1.2 percent. In February, prices for gasoline 91, gasoline 95 and diesel grew 26.7 percent, 25.9 percent and 21.1 percent year-on-year, respectively.
Still, this marks a relative moderation compared to just over 30 percent growth in January and 45 percent in December 2021.
The annual growth in prices for the transportation sector as a whole slowed to 4.3 percent in February from 4.9 percent in January.
However, this group remained the main contributor to headline inflation in February, given the group’s 13-percent — third largest — weighting in the general consumer price index, according to data compiled by Arab News.
On the other hand, the contribution of the food group — the second largest after transportation in February — has more than doubled since December 2021.
As for prices for housing, water, electricity and gas — the group with the largest weighting of 26 percent — the deflation observed since September 2020 seems to have mostly faded out.
The year-on-year fall in prices for this group slowed to 0.19 percent in February compared to 1.35 percent in January 2022 and 3 percent in September 2021.
As a result, the contribution of this group to the headline inflation decreased 7-fold in February compared to January and has become negligible compared to January when this group was the third most important factor — after transportation and food groups — in terms of impacting the headline figure.
Among other changes, it’s worth mentioning the 2.2 percent growth in prices for the miscellaneous items group.
Growth in prices quickened from 1.2 percent in January making the group the third most important factor in February, after transportation and food.