Annual rate of inflation rises

Accra, May 11, GNA- The annual rate of inflation rose 0.3 percentage points from 10.2 per cent in March to 10.5 percent in April having dropped marginally at the end of March by 0.2 percent points from 10.4 at the end of February.

Briefing the press on the release of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the month of April, Mr. Magnus Ebo Duncan, Head Economic statistics Division of the Ghana Statistical service said, the CPI and inflation are published monthly using the Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose (COICOP) while the old series are published using the Central Product Classification (CPC).

He said the changing over to the COICOP classification would enhance the international comparability of the indices, and facilitate ECOWAS' efforts to calculate Harmonized Consumer Price Indices (HCPI) for governments and policy makers in ECOWAS member countries. He said the national CPI for April 2007 was 214.55 with respect to the base year which, when compared with that of April 2006 that recorded 194.20, gave the annual inflation rate of 10.2 per cent. The rate shows how much the general price level has changed over the period between April 2006 and April 2007. He said the CPI of April this year compared with March 2007 was 1.5 per cent and the rate of inflation between March and February 2007 was 1.3 percent.

The contribution of food and beverage items to the national index between March and April was 2.42 points while the non-beverage group together contributed 0.85 points.

Mr. Duncan noted that within the non-food group, transport contributed the highest to the upward movement of the index with 0.43 points, where petrol and intercity bus fare with 0.08 and 0.33 respectively were the highest contributors. "None of the non-food groups had a negative effect on the change in the national index. The education group did not contribute to the change in the national index," he added.

He however noted that the annual rate of inflation for April 2007 for the old CPI series was 9.9 percent as compared to 9.8 percent in March.

The national CPI for April 2007 was 487.18 with respect to the base year September 1997.