THE Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on Wednesday said annual retail inflation in the OECD area increased to 2.4 per cent in March compared with 1.7 per cent in February.

Annual energy prices rose sharply by 7.4 per cent in March, the highest rate since October, 2018. This reflected both the base-year effect with a sharp drop in energy prices in March, 2020 and a contemporaneous rise in energy prices in March, 2021.

The OECD annual inflation excluding food and energy increased slightly, to 1.8 per cent in March, compared with 1.7 per cent in February. Food price inflation slowed slightly to 2.7 per cent compared with 3 per cent in February.

In March, retail inflation increased sharply in Canada to 2.2 per cent and the US to 2.6 per cent, mainly driven by sharp rises in energy prices. It also increased, but more moderately in France to 1.1 per cent, Germany to 1.7 per cent, the UK to 1 per cent and Italy to 0.8 per cent.

In Japan, overall price deflation continued in March (minus 0.2 per cent), but at a slower pace than in February (minus 0.4 per cent).

In the Euro area, overall inflation increased to 1.3 per cent in March compared with 0.9 per cent in February. Excluding food and energy, the Euro area inflation slowed to 0.9 per cent, compared with 1.1 per cent in February.

Annual inflation in the G20 area as a whole increased to 3.1 per cent in March, compared with 2.4 per cent in February. Among non-OECD G20 economies, annual inflation increased in Argentina to 42.6 per cent, India to 5.7 per cent, Brazil to 6.1 per cent, China to 0.4 per cent, South Africa to 3.2 per cent and Russia to 5.8 per cent.

On the other hand, annual inflation decreased in Saudi Arabia to 4.9 per cent from 5.2 per cent in February, while it was stable in Indonesia at 1.4 per cent.