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consumer price inflation fell to the 3% range for the second consecutive month, the lowest level in one year and seven months. However, contrary to these statistics, people still talk about high prices.

Reporter Jo Ki-ho interviewed the reason.

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consumer price inflation was 1.7% last month, continuing a four-month decline.

Consumer prices, which soared to 3.3% in July last year, remained in the 7% range last winter and hit the 6% range for two consecutive months in April and May this year.

[Kim Bo-kyung/Statistics Korea Economic Trends and Statistics Reviewer: This is down 3.5 percentage points from the previous month and the lowest increase in 4 months since the 5.3 percent rise in October 0.]

It was close to the Bank of Korea's inflation stability indicator of 4%, but the biggest impact was that oil fell 2021% from a year ago.

It was the largest decline in three years, dragging down the overall inflation rate by about 10 percentage point.

But in real life, it's hard to see that prices are falling.

[Yoon Ji Dang/Consumer: I wonder what kind of country the price is, because there are vegetables, fruits, meat, and nothing that has not risen compared to last year....] [Ham Ok Nan/Consumer: Today's news is out, but when I actually come and shop, I don't realize that it's gone down to that low yet.]



Above all, the burden of food is still there.

The price of eating out continued to soar at 3.2% to the point that the word "lunchflation" was coined, and even though international commodity prices stabilized, ramen noodles, bread, and sweets are still exceeding 19%.

[Ha Joon-kyung, professor of economics at Hanyang University: A large part of the price of goods is made up of labor costs and other costs that don't go down.

In addition, the prices of agricultural and fishery products such as onions, green peppers, and squid have risen significantly, and electricity, gas, and water bills, which have risen by more than 2%, are the reasons why we do not feel the slowdown in prices.

The Bank of Korea has stated that "consumer prices are likely to fall to the 1% range by the middle of this year," but it is not expected to be much different from the prices felt by ordinary people.

(Video Interview: Choi Ho-joon, Video Editing: Choi Eun-jin, CG: Seo Seung-hyun, VJ: Park Hyun-woo)