Financial News: Hong Kong Inflation Remains Stable At 1.7%

Hong Kong Inflation Remains Stable At 1.7%

(RTTNews) - Hong Kong's consumer price inflation held steady in March after rising to a 9-month high in the prior month, data released by the Census and Statistics Department showed on Thursday.

The consumer price index, or CPI, climbed 1.7 percent year-over-year in March, the same as in February.

Food inflation remained steady at 0.9 percent, while utility costs grew at a faster pace of 3.9 percent versus a 3.5 percent increase in February. Inflation based on transportation slowed to 3.9 percent from 4.3 percent, and that on housing eased slightly from 1.1 percent to 1.0 percent.

Netting out the effects of all governments' one-off relief measures, the underlying inflation also climbed to 1.6 percent in March from 1.3 percent in the previous month.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, the average monthly rate of increase in the composite CPI for the 3-month period ending March was 0.2 percent.

"Looking ahead, elevated international oil prices will likely continue to feed through to the relevant components in consumer prices gradually in the near term, with the final impacts hinging on the evolving situation in the Middle East," a government spokesman said.

"The government has introduced short-term targeted measures to address the recent increase in fuel prices and will continue to monitor the development closely."

Separate official data showed that Hong Kong's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dropped to 3.7 percent for the January to March from 3.8 percent in the December to February period.

The unadjusted jobless rate rose to 3.6 percent from 3.5 percent. There were 136,600 unemployed persons compared to 134,700 in the December to February period.

For comments and feedback: contact editorial@rttnews.com

Copyright(c) 2026 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved

Market News provided by RTTNews