Inflation rate hits 15.7% in February 2022

The national year-on-year inflation rate has increased to 15.7% in February 2022, which is 1.8 percentage points higher than the 13.9% recorded in January 2022, the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has said.

Professor Samuel Kobina Anim, the Government Statistician said this is the highest figure recorded since 2016.

Month-on-month inflation between January 2022 and February 2022 was 2.4%.

According to the GSS, three divisions (housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels, transport and food and non-alcoholic beverages) recorded inflation rates above the national average of 15.7% with housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels (25.4% ) recording the highest inflation.

Regional Inflation

At the regional level, the overall year-on-year inflation ranged from 11.6% in the Western Region to 19.5% in
the Greater Accra Region.

Eastern Region recorded the highest month-on-month inflation (7.3%).

The Upper East region recorded a negative month-on-month inflation rate in February 2022 (-0.9%).

Food and non-food Inflation

The GSS said February’s food inflation (17.4%) is higher than both January’s food inflation (13.7%) and the average of the previous 12 months (10.8%).

Food inflation’s contribution to total inflation increased from 44.2% in January 2022 to 49.4% in February 2022.

Overall month-on-month food inflation was 3.2%, which is higher than both the twelve-month national month-on-month rolling average of food inflation (1.3%) and the rate recorded for February 2021 (0.0%).

All the 15 food subclasses recorded positive month-on-month inflation with water recording the highest (9.0%). Non-food year-on-year inflation on average went up again in February 2022 compared to January 2022 (from 14.1% to 14.5%).

The report further indicated that only one out of the 12 Non-food Divisions had the 12 month rolling average to be higher than the year-on-year inflation for February 2022 for the divisions.

Imported and local inflation

The inflation for imported goods was 12.9%, which is higher than the 11.0% recorded for January 2022. While the inflation for locally produced items was 16.7% (up from the 15.0% recorded in January 2022).

Source:asaaseradio