Johannesburg - South Africa's headline consumer inflation unexpectedly slowed to 6.1 percent year-on-year in May from 6.2 percent in April, data from Statistics South Africa showed on Wednesday.
Month-on-month inflation also braked to 0.2 percent compared with 0.8 percent in the previous month.
Economists polled by Reuters expected CPI to quicken to 6.4 percent year-on-year in May.
Core inflation, which excludes the prices of food, non-alcoholic beverages, petrol and energy, was unchanged at 5.5 percent year-on-year in May but edged slightly lower to 0.2 percent month-on-month from 0.3 percent.
REUTERS