Last month's consumer price inflation rate dropped back to the 2% range at 2.9%.

While the fading base effect from mobile phone service fees played a major role, prices for petroleum products, processed foods, and key ingredients continued their upward trend.

Consumer prices last month rose 2.9% compared to the same month a year earlier.

The rate dropped 0.2 percentage points from 3.1% in August, returning to the 2% range in just one month.

The slowdown was largely driven by the disappearance of the base effect resulting from mobile phone bill discounts.

In August of last year, SK Telecom discounted mobile phone bills for a month as compensation for a personal data leak incident, which caused the mobile phone fee inflation rate in August of this year to surge to 26.7%.

As this base effect dissipated starting in September, the public service price inflation rate also dropped significantly from 6.5% to 1.5%.

Agricultural product prices also fell by 4%.

Fruits such as apples and pears saw good harvests, and prices dropped as shipments increased ahead of Chuseok.

However, livestock and fishery products rose 3.7% and 4.5%, respectively.

The upward pressure widened due to reduced supply combined with Chuseok holiday demand.

Processed foods also increased by 2.1% due to factory price hikes, expanding the margin of increase.

Petroleum prices rose 14.8%, pushing up overall inflation by 0.56 percentage points.

The government analyzed that the ceiling price system for petroleum lowered the inflation rate by 0.6 percentage points, estimating that last month's inflation rate would have reached 3.5% without it.

Computer prices jumped 27.4% driven by higher semiconductor and electronic component prices, while mobile phones rose 8.3%.

Reported by Lee Seong-hoon | Video by Park Choon-bae | Produced by SBS Digital News