* Sharp rise in transport costs pushes inflation to 3-yr high
* Harvest helps to pull down inflation on month-on-month basis
* Inflation well above government's target band
* Price rises have trended higher since removal of fuel subsidies
 |
| Ghana president |
Baah Wadieh, Ghana's acting deputy government statistician, said annual inflation picked up from 11.5 percent in August due mostly to steep rises in the cost of transportation, which shot up 27.7 percent during the period.
Transport fares went up by an average 20 pct in September and the increase had a spillover effect on goods and services throughout the economy, he said. Inflation has trended higher since the government scrapped fuel subsidies in May.
"The combined year-on-year inflation for September was 11.9 percent," Wadieh told a news conference. Month-on-month there was a 0.7 percent decline in inflation as seasonal factors kicked in after the harvest.
Food accounted for 8.9 pct of the index compared with 7.9 in August. Non-food inflation was 14.2 percent, the same as August.
Ghana's Central Bank left its prime lending rate steady at 16.0 percent last month but warned of inflationary risks such as wage pressures, fuel price rises and the expected end of utility subsidies.
The bank said inflation in the gold-, cocoa- and oil-producing nation could creep above the bank's inflation band of 2 percentage points either side of 9 percent before easing again towards year-end during harvest season.
Wadieh said that because Ghana's growing middle class was increasingly consuming more foreign-made goods, inflation was not expected to trend sharply lower at year-end as in the past as a result of the harvest.
"There is an emerging shift in lifestyle and consumption and policy makers will have to take note in order to respond to it in their inflation-targeting," Wadieh said.
0 comments:
Post a Comment