The world's top liquefied natural gas exporter, spared the popular unrest that has hit other parts of the Arab world, returned to annual inflation last December after a protracted period of deflation.
Figures from its statistics agency showed inflation is still well below that in its regional peers, with a Reuters poll on Wednesday showing Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will see price rises of around 5.0 percent next year.
Qatar has promised to hand out salary, pension and benefits increases for state and military employees worth as much as 30 billion riyals ($8.24 billion) and analysts expect that will help bring average inflation to 2.7 percent in 2011 and 3.5 percent next year.
Qatar, set to host football's World Cup in a decade, also plans to spend over $125 billion in the next five years on construction and energy projects and the OPEC member's economy should keep growing strongly.
Transport prices, accounting for 20.5 percent of the price basket, increased 0.8 percent on a monthly basis after being unchanged in July.
But the rents, fuel and energy component dipped 0.5 percent month-on-month following a 0.8 percent decrease in July, while food prices, making up 13.2 percent of the basket, dropped 1.8 percent month-month in August after a 0.5 percent fall in the previous month. Clothing jumped 3.5 percent.
On a monthly basis overall, consumer prices rose 0.2 percent in August after a 0.3 percent decrease in July, the data showed, and one economist said that offered little sign of steady rises to come.
