JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa’s headline consumer inflation quickened more than expected to 6.2 percent year-on-year in January, compared with 5.2 percent in December, data from Statistics South Africa showed on Wednesday.

On a month-on-month basis, prices rose 0.8 percent compared with an increase of 0.3 percent in the previous month.

Core inflation, which excludes the prices of food, non-alcoholic beverages, petrol and energy, edged up to 5.6 percent year-on-year in January from 5.2 percent in the previous month, while also rising to 0.7 percent month-on-month.

The consensus for January headline CPI was 5.93 percent, according to a Reuters poll.

(Reporting by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo; Editing by James Macharia)