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.
Inflation for locally imported items (34.4%) was 2.6 percentage points lower than imported items (37.0%).
The Statistician stated that comparing the inflation rate for the two months, there is a 2.9% decrease from 38.1% recorded in September.
” Price collection is done in 57 markets and prices are collected from about 8,337 outlets, prices are collected for 47,877 products every month from 16 regions while products are ordered in a hierarchy of 13 divisions, 44 groups, 98 classes, 156 subclasses and 307 items”, he added to proof that the figures are not just formulated but rather, data are gathered on the field.
North East Region recorded the highest inflation rate of 47.5 percent closely followed by Eastern 46.6 percent and Western 46.0 percent.
Eastern Region recorded the highest food inflation of 65.3 percent while Western had the highest non-food inflation rate of 43.9 percent.
Savannah Region recorded the lowest inflation rate of 28.5percent.
