BANGKOK: Thailand’s headline consumer price index (CPI) unexpectedly dropped for the first time in five months, down 0.02% in August from a year earlier, due mainly to government subsidies, according to the commerce ministry.

       The reading compared with a forecast for a rise of 0.34% in a Reuters poll and followed July’s 0.45% increase.

       The CPI was dragged down by government measures to lower living costs, particularly a subsidy on tuition fees and utility bills, as well as lower prices of some food items, the ministry said.

       Without the measures, the headline CPI would have risen more than 1%, ministry official Wichanun Niwatjinda told a briefing last Thursday. — Reuters