SEOUL :South Korea's consumer inflation eased for a third consecutive month to a 14-month low in April on an annual basis, data showed on Tuesday, supporting the market's perception that the central bank's policy tightening cycle is over.
The consumer price index (CPI) stood 3.7 per cent higher in April than a year earlier, the Statistics Korea data showed, marking the slowest growth since February last year and following a 4.2 per cent increase in March.
It roughly matched a 3.75 per cent rise tipped in a Reuters survey.
Despite the sustained cooling in annual inflation, other measures showed inflation pressure was far from disappearing as prices rose on a monthly basis and annual inflation held steady when excluding volatile items.
The CPI rose 0.2 per cent in April from March, gaining for a fifth consecutive month, while the annual growth in the index excluding foods and energy items held steady at 4.0 per cent for a third consecutive month, the data showed.
The official target for the Bank of Korea's monetary policy is managing the broadest CPI growth at around 2 per cent on an annual basis.