January's inflation was driven by prices of some food products, air fares and higher cigarette prices, Margo Yuwono, head of Statistics Indonesia, told reporters. The core inflation rate, which excludes government-controlled price and volatile food prices, eased to 3.27%, down from 3.36% in December and compared with a 3.33% forecast.
Indonesia's central bank aims to bring down the headline
inflation to within its target range of 2%-4% in the second half
this year. It had hiked the policy interest rate by a total of
225 basis points since August.
(Reporting by Fransiska Nangoy, Bernadette Christina Munthe
Editing by Ed Davies)