ANNUALISED rate inflation declined further to 8.58 per cent for the month of December last year from November’s figure of 9.08. The decline represents a 0.50 percentage lower than the previous month’s figure.
This indicated that the rate at which average prices of goods and services changed in the country declined by 1.13 per cent from November to December.
Announcing the figures at a news conference in Accra yesterday, the Director of Economic and Industrial Statistics at the Ghana Statistical Service, Mr Magnus Ebo Duncan, said “the downward pressure could be attributed to both food and non-food components of the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
The last time the Ghanaian economy recorded inflation figure in the 8 per cent digit was way back in June 1992 which recorded an inflation rate of 8.40 per cent.
Mr Ebo Duncan of the GSS attributed the further decline to the stable food prices and exchange rates experienced within the period.
The GSS’s Consumer Price Index (CPI), which records the average monthly changes in price levels relative to the 2002 reference period, indicated that mineral waters, soft drinks and juices, jam, chocolate and fruits recorded the highest inflation rates in the food and non-alcoholic beverages group.
Education and communication also recorded “the lowest and most stable inflation rates during the year” in the non-food group, Mr Duncan explained further.
In the regional CPI, Mr Duncan said Greater Accra recorded the highest rate of 13.5 per cent followed by Upper East and West with 10.92 per cent while Volta Region recorded the least of 5.97.
For the past one and half years, monthly inflation rates in the country have consistently dipped, starting from a 20.74 percentage rate recorded in June 2009.
The highest marginal fall of the monthly CPI within the 18-month period was recorded between March and April when the figure fell by 1.6 percentage points, from 13.32 in March to 10.68 per cent in April.
The cumulative decline from January to December 2010, according to Mr Duncan, stood at 6.20 per cent.
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| Ebo Duncan, Director of Economic and Industrial Statistics at the Ghana Statistical Service |
The Director of the Economic and Industrial Statistics attributed the consistent downward pressure on inflation to the food and non-alcoholic beverages group and the non-food group.
Both groups, he said recorded “single digit inflation rates throughout the year”.
Ghana’s inflation rates hit a record high in the 1980s, recording over 100 per cent monthly rates after recording 1.7 per cent in 1962, the least in the inflation records of the country so far.
Since then, inflation rates have remained inconsistent, normally hovering below 30 and 10.
The rate, however, remained consistent from June 2009, dropping from a double digit to a single one.
With the current trend in inflation, the country rocks shoulders with fellow African countries such as Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, South Africa, Uganda, Kenya and the likes who had also consistently maintained clean sheets of single digit inflation rates throughout 2010.
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