JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia’s inflation rate in September accelerated to its highest since October 2015 due to higher transportation costs following a fuel price hike, statistics bureau data showed on Monday.
The headline annual inflation rate rose to 5.95% in September, up from 4.69% in August, but came in slightly lower than a 6.00% rate expected in a Reuters poll.
The annual core inflation rate, which excludes government-controlled prices and volatile food prices, picked up pace in September to 3.21%, compared with 3.04% in August and 3.60% forecast by analysts.
Indonesia raised subsidised fuel prices by about 30% in early September as the government moved to rein in ballooning subsidy bills.
Indonesia’s central bank in its September meeting hiked policy interest rates by 50 basis points in efforts to control inflation which it expected to peak at slightly above 6% and core inflation at 4.6% by the year-end, compared to its target range of 2% to 4%.
(Reporting by Stefanno Sulaiman, Fransiska Nangoy, Ananda Teresia; Editing by Kanupriya Kapoor)
