Inflation continues to climb

Port-of-Spain: The Central Bank has announced that the country's inflation rate continues to climb.

Inflation is now up to 5.7 percent, a two percent rise over the last reported rate of 3.7 percent.

The Central Bank explains that the rise in inflation was mainly attributable to higher food prices.

For the first time in six months, year on year food inlation reached double digits reaching 12.3 percent in November.

As the year comes to a close the Central Bank says commercials banks' excess balances rose to close to $6 billion by the last week of December.

It says a pick-up in government expenditure financed by a draw down in government deposits at the Central Bank has contributed to a build up of financial system liquity.

As a resut commercial banks did not need to access the inter bank market nor the Central Bank's repo facility.

The repo rate has been maintained at three percent.