JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia’s inflation rose slightly in December and remained above the central bank’s target range for the seventh straight month, official data showed on Monday.

The headline annual inflation rate picked up to 5.51% in December, compared with 5.42% in November and 5.39% expected by analysts polled by Reuters. Bank Indonesia’s inflation target range is 2% to 4%.

The annual core inflation rate, which excludes government-controlled prices and volatile food prices, inched higher to 3.36% from 3.30% a month earlier, while the Reuters poll had expected a rate of 3.39%.

(Reporting by Stefanno Sulaiman, Fransiska Nangoy, Gayatri Suroyo; Editing by Martin Petty)