Recorded headline inflation rate for last month – May 2021 – according to the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) was 7.5 percentage points.
The recorded inflation rate for May, represents a 1 percentage points decrease from the 8.5 percent inflation rate recorded for April 2021.
On a year-on-year (YoY) basis, the inflation rate marks a 3.8 percentage points decrease from the 11.3 percent recorded same time in May 2020.
Announcing the inflation rate for May 2021, Government’s statistician, Professor Samuel Annim stated that inflation rate for May was the lowest recorded since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in the county last year.
According to the Professor Annim, food and non-food inflation for May 2021 stood at 5.4 percent and 9.2 percent respectively.
Food inflation dropped from 6.5 percent in April 2021 to the recorded 5.4 percent in May.
Overall month-on-month food inflation was 1.3 percent, which is above the average month-on-month inflation. Low Food inflation is driven by negative inflation for vegetables (-3.5 percent).
Three regions saw a stark decline in food inflation as compared to last month, Western Region went from 6.5 percent to 0.4 percent. Eastern from 8.2 percent to 4.3 percent, and Ashanti from 9.8 percent to 5.9 percent. On the other hand, Volta Region saw an increase in food Inflation from 5.6 percent to 9.8 percent.
With regards to non-food inflation, non-food year-on-year inflation on average went down this month compared to last month (from 8.8 percent to 10.0 percent). Transport is the non-food division that recorded the biggest difference compared to the 12-month average (11.7 percent compared to 7.6 percent)
At the regional level, overall year-on-year inflation ranged from 2.6 percent in Western Region to 12.3 percent in Greater Accra Region.
Upper West Region recorded the highest month-on-month inflation of 4.3 percent.
Also, inflation for imported goods was 7.3 percent (down from 7.4 percent last month), while the inflation for locally produced items was also 7.3 percent on average (down from the 8.7 percent recorded last month).
Month-on-month inflation for imported goods was 0.8 percent and for locally produced goods was 0.6 percent.
