Inflation up 4.8%

Inflation has increased from 4.3 per cent in April to 4.8 per cent in May. According to last month’s consumer price index released by the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda, last month’s all urban general index was at 121.3. This resulted into an increase of 2.98 per cent compared to 4.3 per cent the previous month.Oscar Sibomana, the NISR principal statistician, said the annual change was 4.8 per cent compared to 4.37 per cent the previous month. Year-on-year inflation rate hit an average of 2.98 per cent in May, he added.Underlying inflation, which excludes fresh food and energy, dropped by 0.16 per cent compared to the previous month. It was, however, up by 3.63 compared to the same period last year. The annual average underlying inflation rate was +3.5 per cent in May 2013, a decline from 3.7 per cent the previous month.According to the statistics body, the increase in the consumer price index of 0.05 was due to a rise in housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuel prices.The NISR report also noted that the local goods index increased by 2.86 on annual change, with a monthly movement of 0.03. The prices of the imported products went up by 3.45 points year-on-year with a monthly change of 0.11. In annual change, the increase in the general index of 2.98 was mainly due to the rising prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages (2.62) and education (35.18), which contributed +0.99 and + 1.28 respectively, the report indicated.

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Inflation up 4.8%