Average monthly consumer prices remained unchanged between December 2020 and January 2021 at 0.9 percent, according to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) Newsletter released by the Ghana Statistical Service on Wednesday, February 10, 2021.
After recording negative month-on-month inflation rates of 0.4 and 0.2 percent in August and September 2020, monthly inflation rose to 0.9 percent in December 2020. The recent rate shows that the average prices of a basket of consumer goods gained some stability over the past two months.
The national year-on-year inflation rate eased marginally to 9.9 percent in January 2021, a 0.5 percentage point lower than last month.
“January 2021 recorded the same year-on-year inflation as was recorded on average in 2020 (9.9%). Overall month-on-month inflation (0.9%) was just above the 2020 average (0.8%), but was considerably lower in Greater Accra (0.2%)”
Government Statistician- Prof. Annim.
Despite a gradual reduction to 12.8 percent in January 2021 from 14.1 percent recorded in December 2020, food continues to be the main driver of inflation in Ghana. The recent rate of 12.8 percent is still slightly above the average rate of 12.3 percent over the last 12 months.
With this rate, Food contributed 57.0 percent to the total inflation. This is still above the average for the last one and half years, but slightly down from 59.1 percent recorded last month.
Within the Food Division, Vegetables was the Subclass with the highest rate of inflation of 20.3 percent, which is lower than the 24.2 percent recorded last month. Vegetables have consistently recorded the highest rates of inflation within the food sub-classes.
Overall month-on-month Food inflation was 1.2 percent, 0.3 percentage point lower than last month, but higher than the average over the last 12 months. Compared to last December 2020, Fruits and Nuts saw a decrease in price levels by 5.1 percent, as did Fish and Other Seafood of 0.2 percent. Similar to last month, Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco saw a relatively high month-on-month inflation of 1.4 percent.
Conversely, Non-Food year-on-year inflation on average was 7.7 percent, the same as last month, but which is below the 2020 average of 8.5 percent. Out of the 13 Divisions, five had higher year-on-year inflation in January 2021 than the rolling average over the last 12 months.
The biggest difference between the average and the current month were recorded for Housing with a rate of 2.1 percent, and Education services with a decline of 4.1 percentage points. The average month-on-month Non-Food inflation was 0.7 percent.
For month-on-month inflation, eight Divisions recorded higher inflation than the 12- month rolling average. At the regional level, Ashanti recorded higher month-on-month inflation for 12 divisions in January compared to the 12-month average and Greater Accra recorded the lowest inflation for 11 out of 13 divisions. Regional inflation was between 15.1 percent in Greater Accra and 1.9 percent in the Upper West Region.
On a month-on-month basis, Ashanti Region recorded the highest overall inflation rate of 2.1 percent and Food inflation of 3.0 percent. Interestingly, Greater Accra the lowest overall month-on-month inflation rate of 0.2 percent and 0.0 percent Food inflation.
Furthermore, the inflation of imported goods remained unchanged at 6.1 percent, the same as last month, while the inflation of local goods was 11.3 percent on average, down from 12.1 percent last month. Month-on-month inflation for imported goods was 0.7 percent and for locally produced goods 1.0 percent.
