KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 22): Malaysia's inflation, as measured by the consumer price index (CPI), increased 1% in December 2019 from a year earlier on costlier items including food and non-alcoholic drinks besides water, electricity and fuel, the Statistics Department said today.

In a statement today, the department said the CPI increase "was driven by the index of miscellaneous goods and services (2.4%), food and non-alcoholic beverages (1.7%), housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels (1.7%), education (1.7%), communication (1.5%), furnishings, household equipment and routine household maintenance (1.4%) and health (1.4%)".

"On a monthly basis, CPI rose 0.2% compared to November 2019," the department said.

CPI for the fourth quarter of 2019 increased 1% from a year earlier, it said.

"On a quarterly basis, the CPI increased 0.3% as compared to the third quarter of 2019. The CPI for the year 2019 registered an increase of 0.7% as compared to last year," the department said.