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April 16, 2003 9:00 AM, EDT

The prices paid by consumers for goods rose 0.3% in March, the Labor Department said Wednesday.

On the same day, the Commerce Department said that housing starts jumped 8.3% to an annually adjusted rate of 1.78 million.

The rise in the consumer price index adds on to last month’s increase of 0.6%. In the past year, the CPI has risen 1.7%, Labor said.

The core rate, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, stayed unchanged after a 0.1% increase.

CPI is a closely monitored gauge of inflation, but analysts said that there wasn’t any inflation.

In the housing starts report, Commerce said that the 8.3% increase in starts pushed the adjusted rate to 1.7 million from 1.64 million.