The NCPI for all items for the month of March 2018 decreased by 0.7 percent to 123.7 from 125.8 in February 2018. The decrease in the index point was due to the expenditure value decrease of food items by 0.80 percent and increase of non‐food items by 0.08 percent.

Year on Year inflation of food group has decreased from 3.7 percent in February to 2.6 percent in March 2018 and that of non-food group has increased from 2.8 percent to 2.9 percent during this month.On year on year basis, contribution of food commodities to inflation was 1.19 percent in March 2018 and contribution of non-food items was 1.59 percent. The moving average inflation for the month of March 2018 is 6.7 percent. The corresponding rate for February 2018 was 7.2 percent.