Dubai inflation up on rising food costs

Dubai inflation rose 0.61 per cent until the third quarter of the year mainly driven by rising cost of food items, education, healthcare, and transport.

Prices of vegetables rocketed 9.49 per cent over the same period in 2009, while fruits have become costlier by 6.29 per cent, revealed figures released by Dubai Statistics Center.

While the cost of education rose by 11.1 per cent, health services got expensive by 3.67 per cent., transport by 5.59 per cent, eating out 1.91 per cent.

Arif Obaid Al Muhairi, Executive Director of the Statistics Center of Dubai said "The indices of consumer prices is the fundamental basis of the statement of the inflation index, which measures the numbers of these cyclical changes in the overall level of prices during a specific time period.”

He added “it is also a growing rise in the general level of prices (index of consumer prices) as a measure of inflation in the economy, and a direct indicator to measure the purchasing power of money in various financial operations, which include goods and services.

While non-alcoholic beverages were more expensive by 1.38 per cent, alcoholic drinks and cigarettes got cheaper by 0.22 per cent.
In keeping with the overall trend, housing continued to get cheaper with a slide of 0.98 per cent along with electricity, gas, water and fuel.

Healthcare, an essential element in everyday life, got costlier by 3.67 per cent with dental services alone rising steeply to 12.29 per cent. Hospital services were costlier by 10.91 per cent while medicines were more expensive by 5.5 per cent.