fuel and power have driven the annual inflation rate down from 6.7 percent in November 1990 to 2.5 percent in February, its lowest level since 1977.

A Government statement yesterday said the consumer price index had decreased from 2.9 percent in January to 2.5 percent, the lowest since May 1977, largely because of a three percent drp in electricity prices.

How Bermuda -- where inflation has traditionally run higher than the US and ages and prices have followed each other closely -- is due to a number of factors, including the recession and a huge decline in fuel prices.

The index covers the expenditure of about 87 percent of all households and weights different sectors of the consumer goods and services. Rent, food and transport are the three most heavily weighted areas, accounting for almost 60 percent of the index.

According to a Government statement, the annual increase in the price of food increased from just under seven percent in January 1990 and had fallen to 1.2 percent in Bermuda by last November.

Rent increases were estimated at 3.9 percent at the beginning of 1990 and had fallen to 1.4 percent by December last year.

The Persian Gulf crisis in 1990 and Operation Desert Storm drove up the price of power, but the end of the war sent fuel prices down and by november 1991, prices for electricity and gasoline were lower than they has been 12 months earlier.