Nigerian inflation slows for eighth month in row, down to 15.98 pct

Nigerian consumer inflation index slowed for an eighth month in September, easing to 15.98 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Tuesday.
The annual inflation rate dropped 0.03 percentage points against the rate in August.
A separate food price index showed inflation at 20.32 percent in September, up from 20.25 percent in August.
“Food price pressure continued into September as all major food sub-indexes increased,” the NBS said in its report.
“The rise in the index was caused by increases in prices of potatoes, yams and other tubers, milk cheese and eggs, bread and cereals, coffee tea and cocoa, soft drinks, fish, meat and oil and fats,” it added.
Last month, Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele said the bank’s monetary policy committee noted that high food inflation in the last few months could be traced to rising prices of farm inputs and supply shortages.
He said the committee also cited the impact of intermittent clashes between farming communities and mostly nomadic herdsmen, as well as weak harvest due to increased flooding of farmlands, as having had affected food prices.
Nigeria, which has Africa’s largest economy, emerged from its first recession in 25 years in the second quarter as oil revenues rose. But the pace of growth was slow, suggesting the recovery remains fragile.
The World Bank in a report last week said it expected Nigeria’s economy to grow by 1 percent in 2017 - 0.2 percentage points below its forecast in April.

United capital outlook for inflation
A thorough inspection of the CPI numbers for the month of September indicated that the slight drop in headline inflation rate to 15.98 percent was broadly driven by a sustained reduction in the core index which slowed further to 12.1 percent in Sept-17. Additionally, we observed that despite y/y increase in food inflation sub-index to 20.3 percent in Sept-17, the m/m component of the sub-index fell for the sixth consecutive month to 0.9 percent in Sept-17, the first time since Nov-16, further supporting the slowdown in the headline rate. In our view, this indicates that pressure on food prices may begin thinning out going forward. Consequently, we see m/m inflation further easing in Oct-17 to 0.7 percent and thus Project the headline rate at 15.83 percent for the month of October 2017