Prof Samuel Annim, Govt Statistician
YEAR-ON-year inflation rate for June was 11.2%, 0.1 percentage points lower than the rate for last month. The month-on-month inflation between May 2020 and June 2020 was one per cent.
This is lower than the 1.7% recorded between April and May and 3.2% between March and April 2020, but higher than the average month-on-month inflation recorded in the months October 2019 to March 2020 (0.7%).
According to the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), which made this known, only two of the 13 divisions had higher than average inflation rates – Housing, Water, Electricity and Gas (21.3%) and Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages (13.8%).
Regionals
At the regional level, the overall year-on-year inflation ranged from 4.3% in the Upper West Region and Volta Region to 15.0% in the Greater Accra. In all, but Greater Accra, Northern Region, and Upper East, Food inflation was higher than Non-Food Inflation.
Especially in the Western Region (21.3% Food inflation compared to 7.4% Non-Food inflation) and Ashanti (20.6% Food inflation and 5.4% Non-Food inflation), we see large differences between the Food and Non-Food inflation.
The overall month-on-month inflation was between – 2.2% in the Upper West Region and 2.5% in Greater Accra. Ashanti Region, which saw the highest month-on-month inflation between April and May 2020 (3.9%), had a negative (-0.6%) month-on-month inflation between May and June 2020.
Overall, regions with high month-on-month inflation between April and May 2020, saw lower month-on-month inflation this month and vice versa.
The Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages Division recorded a year-on-year inflation rate of 13.8%. This is 1.3 percentage points lower than May 2020 (15.1%), but 5.9 percentage points higher than the average over the eight months preceding March 2020 (7.9%).
Within the Food Division, Vegetables (28.8%) and Fruits and Nuts (17.4%) were the subclasses with the highest rates of inflation.
Month-on-month the inflation for Fruits and Nuts stood at 3.0% while Vegetables recorded a negative inflation of -2.1%.
As Food contributed 54.4% to year-on-year inflation, it is still the predominant driver of year-on-year inflation, but it contributed less than the previous two months.
Month-on-month Food inflation was 0.1%, which is less than the overall month-on-month inflation and the month-on-month Food inflation in May (2.3%) and April 2020 (6.4%).
Non-food inflation came in at 9.2%, which is higher than the 8.4% measured in May 2020. Like last month, the Division with the highest month-on-month inflation was Housing, Water, Electricity and Gas (5.4%).
Compared to earlier months, Housing, Water, Electricity and Gas (20%) also contributed more to year-on-year inflation. This is driven by an increase in rent prices and inflation for refuse collection.
The Non-Food subclasses with the lowest inflation were Fuels and Lubricants for Personal Transport Equipment (-13.5%), Electricity (-35.6%) and Electric Appliances for Personal Care (-66.9%).
Inflation of imported goods was 4.7%, while the inflation of local goods was 13.9% on average. Month-on-month inflation for imported goods was 0.7%, while month-on-month inflation for local goods was 1.1%. Both of these percentages are lower than the corresponding numbers last month (0.8% for imported and 2.1% for locally produced goods). The main contributor to local inflation was the inflation of locally produced foods.
BY Samuel Boadi