MORE WOES!
Rents jack up inflation rate
Web posted at: 2/20/2007 2:11:54
Source ::: The Peninsula
doha • Qatar’s inflation rate stood at 11.83 per cent in 2006, a major jump from the 8.8 per cent of the year before, according to statistics released by the Planning Council yesterday.. Rents were the bugbear of the economy. Fuel prices, too, played a role in jacking up the inflation rate.
While fuel costs rose 50 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2006 over the same period in 2005, because of the relatively cheap prices of petrol and oil here, the common man was not as affected as he was by high rents.
Rents rose a startling 25.31 per cent in the fourth quarter over the same period in 2005. As living in Qatar has become virtually unaffordable unless an employer is willing to pay the exorbitant prices asked by landlords, many have been forced to send home their families and seek out shared accommodation. In other cases, prospective employees are scared off from coming to the country at all.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) touched 140.09 in the fourth quarter of 2006, up from 135.06 during the third quarter last year. The figure shows up as a quarterly increase of 3.72 per cent. The average of the four quarters in 2006 was 133.23, up from the 119.23 of 2005, resulting in the 11.83 per cent inflation rate. The highest increase came in the rents and fuel group at 6.64 per cent closely followed by garments and footwear at 6.07 per cent.
The Planning Council said that compared with the same quarter of the preceding year, increases covered all groups except for furniture, textiles and home appliances, which saw a 0.13 per cent decrease. Medical care and services also came down by 0.72 per cent. A big drop of 26.79 per cent showed up in educational services, presumably caused by increased competition in the sector, according to the Planning Council. Communications also saw a drop of a significant 8.57 per cent, attributed to reductions in assorted services provided by Qtel.
