3.2% a month earlier<\/a>. It’s the first time since July there’s been an increase.<\/p>\nHigher tobacco prices, due to raised taxes, and more expensive airfares are behind the increase, the ONS said.<\/p>\n
Elevated food costs, especially bread and cereal, were also said to have brought overall inflation up. Food inflation rose to 4.5% in the key Christmas shopping month.<\/p>\n
The overall inflation rate was kept in check as rent rises were not as steep as before.<\/p>\n
Lower oil prices also helped slow the rise in the cost of raw materials.<\/p>\n
Falls to come<\/p>\n
Looking ahead, inflation is expected to slow and could hit the Bank of England’s 2% target by as early as April this year.<\/p>\n
Other economists don’t see it nearing that 2% level until the summer.<\/p>\n
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The rise recorded today is said to be a “temporary blip” by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), which is forecasting a drop to 2% by the summer due to expected lower energy bills in April.<\/p>\n
What does it mean for interest rates?<\/p>\n
That could mean an interest rate cut or two and cheaper borrowing as a result.<\/p>\n
But the surprisingly high rise in inflation makes it even less likely interest rates will be brought down next month.<\/p>\n
There has, however, been no change in core inflation, a measure that excludes volatile food and energy costs, which is closely watched by the rate-setters at the Bank of England. A slight increase had been anticipated.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n
There’s also been only a slight increase in the rate of price increases in the largest part of the UK economy. Services inflation ticked up to 4.5% in December from 4.4% in November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The rate of price increases rose again in December, official figures have confirmed, with inflation rising to 3.4%.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114,184,85,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-249795","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}