LONDON, Nov. 18 (Xinhua) -- Britain's Consumer Prices Index (CPI) 12-month rate rose to 0.7 percent in October, up from 0.5 percent in September, the British Office for National Statistics (ONS) said Wednesday.
CPI readings in the two months were far below the 2 percent target for inflation set by the Bank of England (BoE), Britain's central bank, as the COVID-19 pandemic is still affecting people's activities, said the ONS.
Meanwhile, the CPI including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH) 12-month inflation rate jumped to 0.9 percent in October, up from 0.7 percent in September, said the ONS.
The largest upward contribution (of 0.07 percentage points) to the change in the CPIH 12-month inflation rate, between September and October, came from clothing and footwear, said the ONS.
"Clothing prices overall rose by 2.8 percent between September and October 2020, compared with a smaller increase of 0.9 percent between the same two months a year ago," said the ONS.
The rise of CPI in October showed that "inflation is well past its crisis low point of 0.2 percent," said Paul Dales, an economist at the Capital Economics UK, an economic research consultancy based in London.
The BoE reiterated earlier that CPI inflation is expected to be around 2 percent in two years' time when conditioned on prevailing market yields.
"While it will rise more significantly from next April, we doubt that it will spend much time above the 2 percent target," said Dales, adding that "that is unless a no-deal Brexit pushes it up to a peak of 3.0-4.0 percent."
Suren Thiru, head of economics at the British Chambers of Commerce, said despite the increase in October, the inflation is expected to drop again as the further lockdown restrictions are being implemented.
Impact of England's second lockdown is likely to "drag inflation closer to zero in the near term as restrictions stifles demand & activity," Thiru tweeted.
The coronavirus-related deaths in Britain rose by 598 to 52,745, marking the highest daily number of fatalities since May 6, according to official figures released Tuesday.
Another 20,051 people in Britain have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 1,410,732, the data showed.
To bring life back to normal, countries, such as Britain, China, Germany, Russia and the United States, are racing against time to develop coronavirus vaccines. Enditem
