Automated High Impact News Updates: Higher inflation in March quarter

The consumers price index (CPI) rose 0.8 percent in the March 2020 quarter influenced by rising prices for cigarettes, and rentals for housing, Stats NZ said today. The annual inflation rate was 2.5 percent, the highest since the September 2011 quarter when it was 4.6 percent. This was driven by domestic inflation, which remains above 3 percent. “Measures to slow COVID-19 by closing non-essential businesses and telling people to stay at home from midnight 25 March, didn’t impact so much on the normal collection of prices this quarter,” consumer prices senior manager Paul Pascoe said. Only the last week of March ... (full story)