Inflation in the United Arab Emirates fell to 1.6 percent on an annual basis in January and an unexpected drop in food costs helped to push consumer prices into a second monthly decline in a row, data showed on Sunday.
Consumer price growth in the world's third largest oil exporter hovered close to 1 percent for most of 2010 as debt woes of Dubai state-owned companies dented banks' lending appetite and a once-booming property sector remained weak.
Inflation was 1.7 percent in December, above 0.9 percent for the full year of 2010, which was the lowest annual level since the Gulf war started in 1990. In January, living costs in the OPEC member economy fell by 0.3 percent month-on-month, the same decline as in the previous month, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed. Record high global food prices, which helped spur a popular revolt that has gripped much of the Arab world, are one of the main factors seen fuelling inflation in the Gulf, the world's top oil exporting region, this year.