The GSO reported that nine out of ten groups of goods and services experienced price hikes on the occasion of the Lunar New Year festival. 

The group of catering and food witnessed the sharpest price increase of 1.73% including a 0.53% rise of foodstuff and a 2.13% rise of food. 

Prices of housing materials jumped by 0.69% due to higher costs of gas and power by 3.51% and 0.69%, respectively. 

In the first two months, CPI went up 2.6% against the same period last year. February’s CPI jumped 0.9% against December 2018 and 2.64% against the same period last year. 

In February, gold price increased by 1.53% against the previous month and 3.81% against December 2018; but down 0.16% against the same period last year. 

USD price experienced a month-on-month decline of 0.09% and a year-on-year growth of 2.24%./.