Ghana's January inflation falls deeper to 13.3 pct

Annual headline inflation in Ghana fell 2.1 percentage points to 13.3 percent in January 2017, relative to the 15.4 percent recorded in December 2016, the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) announced here on Wednesday.

The monthly change rate during the month under review inched up 1.9 percentage points to 2.8 percent, compared with the 0.9 percent recorded for December 2016.

The Jan. inflation is the lowest since December 2013, as the government had targeted to achieve a 13 percent inflation, plus or minus two percentage points, by year end.

"The food inflation for the month of January 2017 declined by 2.7 to 7.0 percent, relative to the 9.7 percent recorded for the previous month," Baah Wadieh, Acting Government Statistician, told the media.

The January 2017 non-food inflation also dropped 1.6 percentage points to 16. 6 percent, relative to the December 2016 figure of 18.2 percent.

"Whereas the inflation rate for imported items declined by 0.3 percentage points to 15.4 percent during the month under review, compared to the 15.7 percent inflation rate recorded a month earlier, inflation rate for locally manufactured items declined 2.7 percentage points to 12.5 percent in January 2017, relative to the 15.2 percent inflation rate recorded for December 2016," Wadieh added.

The statistician attributed the fall in inflation rate to both the decline in the non-food inflation and base-drift effect.

The statistical service explained further that the current data had been captured before the onset of the recent depreciation being experienced by the local Ghana cedi currency against major international trading currencies, adding that the February 2017 inflation rate would reflect the effect of the depreciation. Endit