The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has predicted that Ghana will record an average inflation of about 18.0% by the end of 2024.
According to the UK-based firm, the decline of inflation in 2024 will be an important fall from the average of about 38% in 2023 and this will position Ghana the 8th highest in Africa and lower than Nigeria’s 22%.
“Inflationary pressures are expected to ease from the more elevated levels recorded in 2023 for all but a small handful of African countries—namely Angola, Seychelles, Sudan and Tanzania, where country-specific factors will push up consumer price inflation”, EIU stated.
However, inflation will run strong into 2024 and remain a central story for several large economies, including Angola, the DRC, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Sudan and Zimbabwe.
“These countries will continue to suffer the economic instability generated by another year of double-digit consumer price inflation, largely driven by elevated oil prices”.
October 2023 inflation drops to 35.2%
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) data released by the Ghana Statistical Service on Tuesday, November 14, shows that food inflation dropped at 44.8 percent and non-food inflation at 27.7 percent amounting to a drop in the year-on-year inflation for October 2023 to 35.2 percent from September 2023.
According to the Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, the reduction in the inflation rate is a result of the decline in food inflation. This is because, September 2023 recorded 49.4% as compared to this month 44.8%., while non-food inflation recorded 29.3% in September 2023.
The year-on-year inflation rate in October 2023 further slows down for the third time in a row and the month on month inflation slows down from 1.9 percent to 0.6 percent.
“The monthly inflation rate for October 2023 is the third lowest in the last 13months. On year-on-year basis, the difference between food inflation (44.8%) and non-food (27.7%) was 17.1 percentage points. Both food and non-food inflation drop for the third consecutive month”, Prof. Kobina Annim said.
Year-on-year food inflation reduced by 4.6 percentage points between September 2023 and October 2023 and the non-food inflation reduced by 1.6 percentage points.
Month-on-month food (0.1%) was 0.9 percentage points lower than non-food inflation (1.0%) in October 2023.
