Chief Statistician Uzir Mahidin said slower increases in restaurants & hotels at 4.4% and food & non-alcoholic beverages at 3.9% helped drive down inflation.

Apart from that, moderate growth was also recorded by miscellaneous goods & services (2.5%); health (2.2%); education (2%); housing, water, electricity, gas & other fuels (1.6%) and furnishings, as well as household equipment & routine household maintenance (1.5%).

Meanwhile, alcoholic beverages & tobacco as well as recreation services & culture increased by 0.7% and 0.6% respectively.

Uzir said in a statement today that the food & non-alcoholic beverages group contributed 29.5% of total consumer price index (CPI) weight, recording a moderate increase of 3.9% from August’s 4.1%.

The component of food at home recorded an increase of 2.5% compared to 2.9% recorded in the previous month mainly driven by the subgroup of rice, bread & other cereals (4.1%), while the component of food away from home remained unchanged as in August’s 5.9%.

Uzir said the monthly headline inflation in September was up moderately by 0.1% and mainly contributed by alcoholic beverages & tobacco as well as miscellaneous goods & services, which recorded an increase of 0.4% and 0.2% respectively.

The inflation for the third quarter of 2023 declined 2% to 130.7 as compared to 128.1 in the same quarter of the preceding year.

On a quarterly basis, inflation increased 0.4%, the same rate recorded in the second quarter of 2023.

“The core inflation remained at 2.5%, the same rate as recorded in August but it still surpassed the overall national inflation rate (1.9%).

“The highest increase was recorded by the food & non-alcoholic beverages group (5.1%). This was followed by restaurants & hotels (4.4%) and transport (2.9%).”

In comparison to the inflation rate of other countries, Malaysia’s inflation in September (1.9%) was lower than the Philippines (6.1%), Eurozone (4.3%), South Korea (3.7%), Vietnam (3.7%), the US (3.7%) and Indonesia (2.3%).