Housing, electricity costs push inflation to 18.48%

New Telegraph reports that the monthly inflation rate commonly referred to as Consumer Price Index (CPI) has risen by 0.15 per cent from 18.33 per cent to 18.48 per cent in the month of November, according to the monthly inflation data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

NBS cited increases in costs of water, housing, electricity, gas and clothing materials as responsible for the rise, New Telegraph reports.

“The CPI, which measures inflation, increased by 18.48 per cent (year-onyear) in November 2016, 0.15 percentage points higher than the rate recorded in October (18.33 per cent).

During the month, the highest increases were seen in housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels, clothing materials, books, liquid fuel passenger transport by air, motorcycles and shoes,” said NBS.

However, while electricity, water and gas added additional costs, the report stated that communication and insurance index recorded the slowest pace of increases in November, rising at 5.61 per cent and 6.76 per cent year-on-year respectively. Similarly, the food subindex increased by 17.19 per cent year-on-year in November, up by 0.10 percentage points from the 17.09 per cent recorded in October.

The urban index rose by 20.07 per cent year-on-year in November from 19.91 per cent recorded in October, while the rural index increased by 17.10 per cent in November from 16.95 per cent in October. On a month-on-month basis, the report stated that the urban index dropped by 0.03 per cent while the rural index was also down by 0.05 per cent.

Prior to release of the report yesterday, Economic Intelligence Group at Access Bank Plc. had forecast that inflation rate (year-onyear) would accelerate to 18.5 per cent in November 2016 from 18.3 per cent posted in October 2016.

“Our methodology adopts an autoregressive analysis of past prices, while it recognises all the assumptions used by the NBS in its computation of monthly composite consumer price index (CCPI). We forecast inflation rate (year-on-year) to ascend to 18.5 per cent from 18.3 per cent reached in October 2016.

“Our expectation for higher inflation rate is anchored on an anticipated upward movement in the food sub-index and the core sub-index, with food inflation expected to largely dictate the direction of price movement in November,” the analysts predicted.

Source: New Telegraph