The inflation rate returns to 9.9% in January

The year-over-year inflation rate fell to 9.9% in January 2021 from 10.4% in December 2020, Ghana’s Statistical Service said on Wednesday.

The rate is 0.5 percentage point lower than the December rate.

Monthly inflation from December 2020 to January 2021 was 0.9%, the same rate as last month.

Professor Samuel Annim, the government statistician, said headline month-over-month inflation of 0.9% was just above the 2020 average of 0.8%, but was significantly lower in Greater Accra at 0.2%.

Inflation for food and non-alcoholic beverages was 12.8% down from 14.1% last month, while average non-food inflation was 7.7%.

“With this rate, food contributed 57.0 percent of total inflation. This is still above average for the past year and a half, but down slightly from last month by 59.1 percent, ”Prof. Annim said.

Within the Food Division, vegetables have 20.3 percent, making it the subclass with the highest inflation rate, which is lower than last month’s rate of 24.2 percent.

Housing, water, electricity and gas were 19.0%, up from 20.1% in December last month.

Overall, monthly food inflation was 1.2%, 0.3 percentage point lower than last month, but higher than the 12-month average.

Compared with December 2020, fruits and nuts were -5.1%, which saw a decrease in prices, as well as fish and other seafood by -0.2%.

Like last month, alcoholic beverages and tobacco saw a relatively high month-over-month inflation rate of 1.4 percent.

On a regional basis, inflation ranged from 15.1% in Greater Accra to 1.9% in the Haut-Ouest region.

— GNA