Ghana's inflation drops to 16.7 pct in July

Ghana's year-on-year inflation rate for July took 1.7 percentage point drop to stand at 16.7 percent, relative to the 18.4 percent recorded for the previous month, the Ghana Statistical Service said here on Wednesday.

The monthly inflation rate for July also slid 0.4 percentage points to 0.9 percent, relative to the 1.3 percent recorded in June.

"The drop in the rate of inflation was due to the base drift effect, seasonal effect and the stability of the local cedi currency," said Philomena Nyarko, Government Statistician.

She explained that the price stabilities in certain key areas were the main factors precipitating the lower inflation.

These include utility tariffs, which stayed down this year, compared with 2015 when they went up by 15 percent, and cooking gas and electricity which remained low, compared with the above 19 percent increase last year.

Whereas food inflation rate for July remained at 8.6 percent, the same as that recorded in June, non-food inflation dropped to 21.2 percent from 24.1 percent recorded in the previous month. Endit