New Telegraph

Inflation rate hits 13.22%, highest jump since Oct 2016

The consumer price index which measures inflation rose by 0.40 percentage points between July and August 2020 on a year-on-year basis, the highest increase recorded since October 2016.

According to the August CPI/Inflation report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the rate of inflation stood at 13.22 per cent in August; higher than the 12.82 per cent recorded in July.

Inflation measures the rate at which the prices of goods and services increase over a period of time.

The last time Nigeria’s inflation rate was in this region was in March 2018 when the economy was recovering from the 2016 recession and inflation rate was on a decline from the 18 per cent recorded during the recession.

“On a month-on-month basis, the Headline index increased by 1.34 per cent in August 2020. This is 0.09 per cent higher than the rate recorded in July 2020 (1.25 per cent),” the report read.

“The urban inflation rate increased by 13.83 per cent (year-on-year) in August 2020 from 13.40 per cent recorded in July 2020, while the rural inflation rate increased by 12.65 per cent in August 2020 from 12.28 per cent in July 2020.

“The composite food index rose by 16.00 per cent in August 2020 compared to 15.48 per cent in July 2020.”

According to the NBS, the rise in the food index was caused by increases in prices of bread and cereals, potatoes, yam and other tubers, meat, fish, fruits, oils and fats and vegetables.

Core inflation, which excludes the prices of volatile agricultural produce, stood at 10.52 per cent in August 2020, up by 0.42 percentage points when compared with 10.10 per cent recorded in July 2020.

The highest increases were recorded in prices of passenger transport by air, hospital services, medical services, pharmaceutical products, maintenance and repair of personal transport equipment, vehicle spare parts, Motor cars, passenger transport by road, miscellaneous services relating to the dwelling, repair of furniture and paramedical services.

On a year-on-year basis, the rate of increase in the prices was recorded in Kogi (17.29 per cent), Bauchi (15.77 per cent) and Ebonyi and Yobe (14.71 per cent), while Lagos (11.45 per cent), Kwara (11.22 per cent) and Abuja (11.17 per cent) recorded the slowest rise in headline year-on-year inflation.

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