Inflation Inches Down To 9.9%

THE YEAR-on-year inflation rate dropped from 10.4% in December 2020 to 9.9% in January this year with the month-on-month inflation recording 0.9%.

The latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) report released by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) which made this known, said food inflation recorded 12.8% compared to 14.1% in December last year.

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That, however, appears higher than the average for last year, of 12.3%.

Overall month-on-month food inflation was 1.2% (0.3 percentage point lower than last month, but higher than the average over the last 12 months).

Within the Food Division, Vegetables (20.3%) was the subclass with the highest rate of inflation, which is lower than that of last month of 24.2%.

Non Food

The Non-Food year-on-year inflation on average recorded 7.7% last month was less than the average of 8.5% for last year.

According to the GSS, of the 13 divisions, five had higher year-on-year inflation in January 2021 than the continuing average for last year.

While Housing recorded (2.1 percentage points), Education services registered -4.1 percentage points.

Again, the inflation rate for imported goods was maintained at 6.1%, while the inflation of local goods was 11.3% on average from 12.1% last month. On a month-on-month basis, inflation for imported goods recorded 0.7% while locally produced goods recorded 1.0%.

Regional performance

The Greater Accra Region recorded the highest inflation rate of 15.1%.

However, Ashanti region recorded higher month-on-month inflation for 12 divisions in January compared to the 12-month average. Greater Accra recorded the lower inflation for 11 out of 13.

The Upper West Region recorded the least inflation rate of 1.9% while in the Upper West Region, Food inflation was -0.6% with the non-food recording 4.5%.

The major gap in Food and Non-Food inflation was recorded in the Eastern Region (12.8% and 2.6% respectively) while overall year-on-year inflation came down in six regions compared to last month, with the biggest decrease in the Central Region (-1.8 percentage points) and the largest increase in the Ashanti Region, recording 0.9 percentage points.