Dubai’s inflation rate advanced to the highest level in more than five years, after prices in the housing index rose the most since at least January 2009.
Consumer prices accelerated to 4.38 percent in October compared with the same period last year, the Dubai Statistics Center said in an e-mail today, the highest since May 2009. Housing, the biggest component in the consumer price index, added 6.67 percent, as rents increased 7.55 percent.
Dubai’s inflation rate is rising as the International Monetary Fund forecasts the economy will expand 5 percent this year, the fastest rate since 2007. Property prices in the emirate, which plunged more than 50 percent since their peak in 2008 to a low in 2011, have risen 4.7 percent in 2014 and are headed for their third year of gains, according Cluttons LLC’s mid-range apartment index.
Dubai’s housing gauge also includes gas, water and maintenance. Bloomberg began tracking it on a year-on-year basis in January 2009.-Bloomberg
