adminClothing and footwear prices rose 8.0% last month from a year earlier, the highest increase in 31 years.
Apparel prices, which have been sluggish during the coronavirus pandemic, seem to be rising steeply as people are more active outside.
According to Statistics Korea’s Consumer Price Index by Expenditure Purpose on May 6, the price index for clothing and footwear rose 8.0% from the same month last year.
The year-on-year inflation rate of clothing and footwear was in the 1% range until April last year (1.8%), but it rose to 3% in May last year, 5% in November last year, and 6.1% in March and April this year.
Then, last month, the rate jumped to 8.0%, the highest rate in 31 years since May 1992 (8.3%).
Apparel and footwear rose 8.4% and 5.8%, respectively, last month, especially gloves (18.1%), T-shirts (14.3%), dresses (13.7%), women’s bottoms (13.7%), children’s and infants’ clothing (13.7%), jeans (11.8%), and laundry (11.3%).
In May, the month-on-month increase in clothing and footwear prices was also high at 3.1%.
An official from Statistics Korea said,안전놀이터 “Apparel prices increased due to the release of new apparel for the spring-summer seasonal change.”
The steep increase in clothing and footwear prices contrasts with the slowdown in the overall consumer price index.
The year-over-year increase in the CPI peaked at 6.3% in July last year and gradually slowed to 3.3% last month.
However, there are still a number of sectors where inflation is quite high.
In addition to apparel, increases in food and lodging (7.0%), other goods and services (6.4%), household goods and household services (6.0%), housing, water, electricity and fuel (5.9%), food and non-alcoholic beverages (3.9%), and entertainment and culture (3.8%) outpaced the overall consumer price index.
The sectors with lower growth rates than the total index were education (2.2%), health (1.6%), communications (0.9%), alcohol and tobacco (0.2%), and transportation (-6.9%).