MOSCOW: Saudi Arabia’s annual consumer inflation rate surged to 2.3 percent in June, from 2.2 percent in May, according to the latest data released by the General Authority for Statistics. The slight uptick in the inflation rate was primarily driven by a rise in food and beverages prices. The growth rate in this category reached 4.4 percent, according to the GASTAT press release. “Food and beverages prices were the main drivers of the inflation rate in June 2022 due to their high relative importance in the Saudi consumer basket with a weight of 18.8 percent,” said GASTAT. Looking at other categories that affected the headline June figure, the most noticeable change emerged from transportation, housing and utilities. While the annual growth in the transport index slowed to 2.47 percent in June from 4.05 percent in May, the growth rate in the housing and utilities group doubled to 1.02 percent from 0.49 percent in May. As a result, the contribution of the transport in headline June figure decreased by 0.21 points to 0.32 points while the latter increased by 0.14 points to 0.26 points. The food and beverages category’s contribution to headline inflation changed less in June compared to May at around 36 percent. However, the transportation share declined considerably to approximately 14 percent from 24 percent in May. At the same time, the housing and utilities pie almost doubled to over 11 percent from around 6 percent in the previous month. Also, the contribution of miscellaneous goods and services increased to 12 percent from 11 percent approximately. For the month-on-month inflation, which came in at 0.2 percent, the most noticeable factor changes were the dampening effect on the headline figure from the 0.08 point decrease in the home furnishings and equipment category and increases in the contribution by the food and beverages as well as transport categories — 0.04 points each.