The NEER and REER page has been updated, as has the Google Docs version.
Summary
This update is a little late for a few reasons. First, I was travelling the whole of last week, and simply hadn’t the time. Second, there were major updates to a few of the CPI series (changes of base years), including the one for Malaysia, that required rejigging the spliced deflator series.
On the whole though, the picture hasn’t changed much since December 2017. The Ringgit was still climbing against most currencies, which resulted in a continued increase in all of the indexes. On the year, the nominal broad index was up 5.3% in January and 6.4% in February, while the real broad index was up 3.9% and 6.3%. The picture was broadly the same across all the sub-indexes.
On a bilateral basis, the Ringgit was up against 14 currencies in January and 11 in February (relative to the 15 that make up the broad index). The biggest gains were against regional currencies, with the only net declines over Jan-18-Feb-18 recorded against the EUR, JPY and CNY.
Changelog:
- Indexes have been updated to February 2018
- CPI deflators and forecasts have been updated for January/Feburary 2018
- CPI deflator data revisions were required for Malaysia, Thailand, and the Phillippines. This required revisions to the indexes from Jan-17 onwards
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