Headline inflation projected to peak in March this year
Headline inflation is projected peak in March this year, says Research Lead at GCB Capital, Courage Boti.
Speaking in an interview, Mr Boti averred inflation is expected to witness a decline starting March 2023.
According to him, this is likely to happen if the country gets a bailout from the IMF as soon as possible.
“We should see much slower growth in inflation at least for January [2023] and February [2023] and we could be on course for a peak in March [2023]. But the situation is quite fluid”.
“We saw from March [2023], April [2023] last year the rate of inflation was easing but then the depreciation [of the cedi] pressures set in. It appears if we could not achieve an IMF programme as soon as possible, the agitations could reemerge soon and that might mean more currency pressures”, he added.
Inflation shot up by 3.8% to end 2022 at 54.1%, according to data from the Ghana Statistical Service.
Despite a strong improvement in the value of the cedi and a reduction in the prices of petroleum products, the rate of inflation still went up in December 2022. This was due to steep increases in food, transport and housing costs.
According to the figures, five divisions recorded inflation rates higher than the national average.
They were Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels (82.34%); Furnishings, Household Equipment (71.52%); Transport (71.42%); Personal Care, Social Protection and Miscellaneous Goods and Services (60.94%) and Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages (59.71%).
Inflation for locally produced items was 51.1% and inflation for imported items was 61.9%.
Eight sub-classes registered inflation rates higher then the food inflation average. They included Water (94.2%), Fruit and Vegetable Juices (84.6%), Milk, Other Diary Products and Eggs (82.2%) and Tea, Mate and Other Plant Products for Infusion (77.7%).
For the regions, the Greater Accra region recorded the highest inflation of 66.7%. It was followed by Eastern region (64.1%) and Bono region (60.3%)
>The region with the lowest inflation rate was the Volta region with a rate of 35.6%.
