Inflation drops to 5%

The national year inflation, measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was 5% in November, down by 1.9% from the 6.9% in October. Inflation has now reached a year low. Now, all eyes are glued to the central bank to see if they would reduce the bank rates from 11%. The inflation has been on a downward trajectory from 12.8% in January to 5% in November following reduced international fuel prices and stable food prices.

The towns and cities inflation went down by 1.3% from 5.8% in October to 4.5% and urban villages inflation rate fell by 1.8% from 6.9 to 5.1% between the two months. The rural villages inflation rate was 6% in November, down by 3.5% on the October rate of 9.5%. The November national CPI increased by 0.3% to 130.7 as all group indices showed stable movements between October and November with clothing and footwear recording a change of 0.8%, restaurants and hotels (0.8%), furnishing, household equipment and routine maintenance (0.7%) and alcohol and tobacco (0.5%).

Meanwhile, all-tradeables inflation rate for November was 4.1%, down by 2% on the October rate of 6.1%.Non-tradeables inflation rate was 8.3% in November up by 0.1% on the October rate of 8.2%. The domestic tradeables inflation rate went down by 10.6% from 13.9 to 3.3% and the Imported tradeables inflation rate increased by 1.4% between October and November, from 1.9 to 3.3%.