Education costs drive up Dubai inflation

An increase in the cost of education has driven up Dubai’s inflation in the first half of this year.

Education, which has 4.09 percentage weight on the emirate’s Consumer Price Index, or CPI, recorded the highest increase of 12.20 per cent on higher school fees, according to data put out by the Dubai Statistics Centre.

Overall, Dubai's inflation rate jumped to 0.64 per cent in the first half, compared to the same period of 2009, the data showed.

The emirate recorded a modest change in its annual June inflation at 0.51 per cent against 0.48 per cent in May.

The CPI of the emirate reached 115.36 points by the end of last month, compared to 114.63 in the first half of 2009.

The heavyweights of the index, housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels fell by 0.51 per cent. It contributes 43.7 per cent in the CPI.

Citing the reason for the decline, the centre said inflation rate of this heavy weight decreased because of the decline in the prices of materials for the maintenance and repair of dwelling by 6.94 per cent, followed by the prices of solid fuels with rate 3.49 per cent.

On the other hand, the prices of gas registered a high increase, reaching to 11.83 per cent.

Prices of wireless and wired services fell by 10.89 per cent while wireless and wired equipment prices increased by 6.31 per cent.

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