January inflation jumps 3.2%

An attendant prepares to fill a customer’s car at a PTT station in Bangkok. (File photo: Bangkok Post)

Thailand’s consumer price index (CPI) jumped by more than expected in January, rising to a nine-month high of 3.2% from a year earlier, driven by a rise in energy prices, the Commerce Ministry said on Friday.

The reading compared with a forecast for a rise of just 2.4% in a Reuters poll of economists, and represented a significant rise from 2.2% in December.