By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Data released on Friday morning by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has revealed that inflation rate in the month August this year slowed down to 16.01 percent.
Business Post gathered that it is the seventh consecutive month since January 2017 that the country’s headline Consumer Price Index (CPI) is slowing down.
The latest figure showed a drop from 16.05 percent recorded in July 2017 to 16.01 percent in August, representing 0.04 percent decline.
The CPI measures the average change over time in prices of goods and services consumed by people for day to day living.
According to the NBS, increases were recorded in all COICOP divisions that yield the Headline Index.
On a month-on-month basis, the Headline index increased by 0.97 percent in August 2017, 0.24 percent points lower from the rate of 1.21 percent recorded in July.
The percentage change in the average composite CPI for the twelve-month period ending in August 2017 over the average of the CPI for the previous twelve-month period was 17.33 percent, 0.14 percent point lower from 17.47 percent recorded in July 2017.
The Urban index rose by 16.13 percent (year-on-year) in August 2017, down by 0.09 percent point from 16.04 percent recorded in July, and the Rural index increased by 15.91 percent in August from 16.08 percent in July.
On month-on-month basis, the urban index rose by 0.99 percent in August 2017, down by 0.26 percent point from 1.25 percent recorded in July, while the rural index rose by 0.95 percent in August 2017, down by 0.23 percent point from 1.18 percent in July.
The corresponding twelve month year-on-year average percentage change for the urban index increased from 18.43 percent in July to 18.15 percent in August, while the corresponding rural index also increased from 16.60 percent in July to 16.58 percent in August.
