LONDON, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Britain's Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 0.4 percent in the 12 months to February, down from 0.7 percent to January, the British Office for National Statistics (ONS) said Wednesday.
Prices for clothes, second-hand cars, and games, toys and hobbies fell, which was partly offset by higher transport costs and petrol prices. Clothing and footwear prices fell 5.6 percent in the year to February, the biggest drop since November 2009, according to the ONS.
Normally, clothes prices rise into February following the end of the January sales, but there was increased discounting this year, especially for women's clothes and shoes, as Britain embarked on its third COVID-19 lockdown since the outbreak of the pandemic in country, said the Guardian newspaper.
"The drag on CPI inflation in February from the COVID-19 lockdown will delay the rebound in inflation to 2.0 percent and perhaps prompt the markets to reconsider their view that interest rates will rise next year," said Paul Dales, chief UK economist at the London-based economic analysis firm Capital Economics.
Meanwhile, the CPI including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH) rose by 0.7 percent in the 12 months to February, down from 0.9 percent to January, said the ONS.
"The largest downward contribution (of 0.13 percentage points) to the change in the CPIH 12-month inflation rate came from clothing and footwear," said the ONS.
Andrew Sentance, senior adviser to Cambridge Econometrics, a British-based global economics consultancy, tweeted that the falls apparently were due to falling prices of clothing and second hand cars. "But clothing shops and car showrooms are closed. So how reliable is this latest reading on CPI inflation?"
James Smith, a developed markets economist at financial services firm ING, said that he believes the abrupt decline was a temporary phenomenon.
"While that's undoubtedly quite a big miss, we can chalk most of it down to either temporary or quirky factors," said Smith.
Smith said that he believes that the inflation rate remained likely to reach Bank of England's 2 percent target by the end of the year.
"Throw in some spillover effect from higher transportation costs (owing to both Brexit and worldwide shipping disruption), then headline inflation is like to be at, or possibly a tad above, the 2 percent target by the end of the year."
The ONS data came as Britain on Tuesday marked one year since its first COVID-19 lockdown in March last year.
Experts have warned Britain is "still not out of the woods" amid concerns over new variants and the risks of the public breaching restriction rules.
To bring life back to normal, countries such as Britain, China, Germany, Russia and the United States have been racing against time to roll out coronavirus vaccines. Enditem