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Nigeria’s inflation drops for 13th consecutive month
The Nigerian economy has managed to maintain a steady decrease in inflation for the 13th month in a row.
Since January 2017, Consumer Price Index (CPI) has dropped to 15.13% in January 2018. The rate was about 15.37% in December 2017, from 18.72% in January 2017.
CPI measures the composite changes in the price of consumer goods and services purchased by households, such as transportation, food, and medical care, over a period.
On a monthly basis, the NBS said CPI in January 2018 dropped by 0.24% points from the rate recorded in December (15.37%). Increases were recorded in all 12 Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose (COICOP) functions that yield the Headline Index used in the report.
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On a month-on-month basis, the NBS said the Headline index increased by 0.8% in January 2018, or about 0.21% points higher from the rate of 0.59% recorded in December 2017.
The percentage change in the average composite CPI for the 12-month period ending January 2018 over the average of the CPI for the corresponding period was 16.22%, or about 0.28 point lower from 16.50% in December 2017.
The NBS said urban inflation rate rose by 15.56% in January 2018 from 16.78% in December 2017, compared with the rural inflation rate, which declined by 14.76% in January 2018 from 15.02% in December 2017.
On a monthly basis, the urban index rose to 0.83% in January 2018, up by 0.17 from 0.66% recorded in December 2017, while the rural index also rose to 0.77% in January 2018, up by 0.23 points when compared with 0.54% in December 2017.
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The corresponding 12-month year-on-year average percentage change for the urban index stood at about 16.55% in January 2018. This is less than 16.92% reported in December 2017, compared with the corresponding rural inflation rate in January 2018 which dropped to about 15.89% from about 16.10% recorded in December 2017.
The report said the annual food price index and food price pressure continued into December though generally at a slower pace year-on-year.
The Food Index stood at about 18.92% (year-on-year) in January 2017, down from the rate recorded in December (19.42%). The implication is that Nigerian consumers were paying less for food during the month than they did in the previous month.
On a month-on-month basis, the food sub-index was about 0.87% in January 2018, down by 0.29% from 0.58% recorded in December.
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