Malaysia's inflation rate rises

Malaysia's inflation rate rose 2.8 percent in October from a year ago, due to the increase of transport costs, according to official statistics here on Friday.
However, the overall rate was still below economists'forecast of an increase of between 3 percent and 3.1 percent, the Statistics Department said in a report.
The inflation rate, which is measured by the consumer price index (CPI), increased by 0.5 percent from September. For January to October, the CPI increased by 3.2 percent.
The department said the higher CPI in October was due to the rise in the index for transport by 5.3 percent, restaurants and hotels 4.6 percent.
As for housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels, the inflation rate increased by 3.4 percent. It rose at the same pace for health costs. Food and non-alcoholic beverages increased by 2. 8 percent. "These five groups of goods and services contributed 95.3 percent to the increase in the CPI for the month of October this year,"it said.