China News Agency, Ottawa, January 17 (Reporter Yu Ruidong) The latest data released by Statistics Canada on January 17 shows that the country's consumer price index (CPI) will increase by 6.8% year-on-year on average in 2022, the highest increase in 40 years. .

  In contrast, the average monthly year-on-year increases in Canadian CPI in 2021 and 2020 will be 3.4% and 0.7%, respectively.

If energy prices are excluded, the average monthly CPI increase will be 5.7% in 2022 and 2.4% in 2021.

  Both goods and services prices will rise at a faster rate in 2022 than in the previous year.

Among them, the price of non-durable goods increased most significantly.

The 22.5 per cent increase in energy prices was cited by Statistics Canada as the biggest driver of higher headline inflation last year.

Among them, gasoline rose 28.5%.

Meanwhile, retail food rose 9.8 percent to its highest level since 1981.

  Looking at the time period, the year-on-year growth rate of prices in the first half of last year accelerated month by month, reaching a high of 8.1% in June; it slowed down in the second half of the year.

  According to the monthly CPI data released by Statistics Canada on the same day, the country's consumer price index (CPI) in December 2022 rose by 6.3% year-on-year, a slight correction from the 6.8% increase in November.

From a month-on-month perspective, the country's CPI rose slightly by 0.1% in November last year, and fell by 0.6% in December, the largest monthly decline since April 2020.

After adjusting for seasonal factors, the CPI in December decreased slightly by 0.1% from the previous month.

  Statistics Canada believes that the slowdown in overall CPI growth is mainly due to a correction in the upward trend in gasoline prices.

In addition, housing property replacement costs, fuel, other own accommodation expenses, and price increases for various durable goods also declined.

However, mortgage interest costs, clothing and footwear, personal care items and other price increases continued to climb.

  Although gasoline prices in December rose about 3% year-on-year, they fell 13.1% month-on-month, the largest monthly drop in 32 months.

  The growth rate of retail food prices has not changed much. The year-on-year increase in the past five months has been around 11%, but the increase in fresh vegetables has increased.

  In view of the fact that the current inflation level is still significantly higher than the expectations of the Bank of Canada, Canadian market analysts generally predict that the Bank of Canada will raise interest rates again on January 25, the interest rate meeting day.

  Facing high inflation, the Bank of Canada raised interest rates seven times in a row from March to December last year, accumulatively raising interest rates by 400 basis points, raising the benchmark interest rate from 0.25% to 4.25%.

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