MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chile's October inflation, the highest since 2002, 0.9%

October consumer prices in Chile increased 0.9%, accumulating 8.5% in ten months and 9.9% in the last twelve months according to the latest release from the country's Statistics Institute, INE. October's increase is the highest for the month since 2002.

The items which suffered the highest increase were, Food, 1.6%; Others, 1.3%; Transport, 0.9%; Housing 0.6%; Health, 0.4%; Education and Leisure 0.2%. Market analysts were expecting a 0.6% rise. However October was lower than the 1.1% of September, but 0.3 percentage points above the same month last year. In 2007 Chile experienced the highest inflation in twelve years, 7.8%. But there was also good news: the Chilean economy expanded at an annual 5.5% in September, according to the Central Bank. This was half a percentage higher than in the previous month. Manufacturing, wholesale trading and communications were the most dynamic items in September, while Mining had a negative incidence because of the rapid fall in copper international prices.