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Festive spending pushes inflation to 8% – NBS

By on January 15, 2015

The National Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday released the Consumer Price Index for the month of December 2014, with the inflation rate rising by 0.1 percentage point from 7.9 per cent in November to eight per cent.

The bureau in the CPI report, which was made available to our correspondent in Abuja, said with the inflation rate at eight per cent, the country had now seen a single digit-range for 24 consecutive months.

Specifically, it said in the month of December 2014, the country experienced a faster pace of increase in inflation as a result of advances in a broad array of divisions that yielded the headline index.

It said, “In December, the CPI, which measures inflation, rose by 8.0 per cent (year-on-year), 0.1 percentage points from 7.9 per cent recorded in November.

“This implies that inflation has held in the single-digit range for 24 consecutive months. Specifically in December, the faster pace of price increase recorded by the headline index was as a result of advances in a broad array of divisions that yield the headline index.

“Food prices edged slightly higher in December as a result of the festive period.”

As a result of the high spending during the festive period, the report explained that the food sub-index rose by 9.2 per cent (year-on- year), up from 9.1 per cent recorded in November.

This, it added, was the first uptick in rates of food prices observed in four months.

The report stated that while higher increases were recorded in the meat, fish and diary groups, the food sub-index was weighed upon by slower rises in the bread and cereal, oil and fats, and fruit groups.

Year-on-year, the report stated that the urban index increased at the same rate in December as in November by 7.9 per cent.

The NBS report stated that rural prices as observed by the rural index increased at a faster pace in December after increasing at a slower pace for the previous three months.

It said, “The Rural All Items Index increased by 8.0 per cent, marginally higher from 7.9 per cent recorded in November.

“On a month-on-month basis, both the urban and rural indices recorded the highest increases since May and September 2014, respectively.

“Prices increased by 0.2 percentage points to 0.83 and 0.82 per cent, respectively.”

 

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