Malaysia's average Consumer Price Index (CPI) for January-March period this year posted 105.1, up 2.6 percent compared with the same period last year, the Statistics Department said here on Wednesday.

The hike was boosted by higher indices of all the main categories of commodities and services, except clothing and footwear, and communication, which dropped by 1.3 percent and 1.7 percent respectively, the department said.

Notable among these increases were transport (6.1 percent), food and non-alcoholic beverages (3.2 percent), and housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels.

Other increases were seen in the categories of alcoholic beverages and tobacco (4.8 percent), restaurants and hotels (2.4 percent), education (2.2 percent), health (1.7 percent),etc, according to a press release from the department.

The CPI for March in the country advanced 1.5 percent to 105.0 year-on-year, but declined 0.1 percent when compared with the previous month, it added.

Source: Xinhua