The national year-on-year inflation rate Consumer Producer Index (CPI) stood at 7.9% in December 2019, representing 3 percentage points lower than the 8.2% recorded in November 2019.
Alcoholic Beverages, Tobacco 8: Narcotics (13.5%), Transport (11.0%), and Housing (10.5%) were the Divisions with the highest rates of inflation.
These were contained in a release by Ghana Statistical Service in Accra.
At the news conference, government statistician of the Ghana Statistical Service, Professor Samuel K. Annim said, “due to its relative importance in consumption, food is still the main driver of inflation in Ghana, but less than last month”.
On food and non-food inflation, GSS noted that, “the Food and Non-alcoholic beverages Division recorded a year-on-year inflation rate of 7.2%.”
“This is 1.2 percentage points lower than what was recorded in November 2019 (8.4%).”
“National Non-food year-on-year inflation for December 2019 was 8.5%, up from 8.0% recorded in November 2019.”
According to him, between November 2019 and December 2019, the price level of Food and Non-alcoholic beverages went down slightly (-.6%).
This fall is predominantly driven by a decrease in price levels of Vegetables and Fish.
This stands in contrast the increase in Food inflation between October 2019 and November 2019 (+1.1%), he stressed.
“Non-food Sub-classes with the highest year-on-year inflation include, other transport services (34.5%), Postal and courier services (31.5%), Narcotics (28.1%), and Garden products (24.7%), Maintenance and repair of personal transport equipment (40.6%), Education (not defined by level) (-8.1%), Cars (-2.3%), Sound equipment (-2.3%), and Electric appliances for personal care (-2.2 96) had negative year-on-year inflation rates.”
Inflation of imported goods was 6.1%, while the inflation of local goods was 8.7% on average.
This is the highest rate of local inflation and the lowest rate of inflation for imported goods since August 2019. Month-on-month inflation for imported goods was -2%, while month-on-month inflation for local goods was 5%.
Story by Edzorna Francis Mensah.
