South Africa's headline consumer inflation edged up to 5.4 percent year-on-year in December, slightly below market expectations, from 5.3 percent in November, Statistics South Africa said.
On a month-on-month basis, CPI quickened to 0.3 percent compared with 0.1 percent in November.
Economists surveyed by Reuters expected a year-on-year rate of 5.5 percent and 0.4 percent month-on-month.
Core inflation, which excludes the prices of food, non-alcoholic beverages, petrol and energy, was steady at 5.3 percent year-on-year but edged up to 0.3 percent on a month-on-month basis.
However the transport index rose by 0.8 percent between the two months, driven up largely by a fuel price increase of 17 cents per litre.
The weak rand is expected to continue to drive commodity prices higher following a fuel price hike earlier this month.
Stats SA said the annual headline CPI average for 2013 ticked up to 5.7 percent, compared with 5.6 percent the previous year.
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