Nigeria sees inflation inch up to 11.37 percent in April

By Tola Akinmutimi

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigeria’s official statistical data producing and reporting agency, reported on Wednesday that the nation’s  Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures
inflation, rose to 11.37 percent (year-on-year) in April 2019.

The agency, in its latest ‘CPI and Inflation Report for April’, indicated that the latest rate represented 0.12 percent points higher than the 11.25 percent rate recorded in the preceding month.

It attributed the slight increase in the general price level of the economy during the month under review to increase in prices of some foodstuff, leading to a rise in the composite food index to 13.70
percent in April compared to 13.45 percent in March.

Specifically, the bureau reported that the rise in the food index was caused by increases in prices of meat, fish, oils and fats, bread and cereals, milk, cheese and egg, yam and other tubers, fruits and
vegetables.

A further analysis of the inflation report on month-on-month basis showed that the food sub-index increased by 1.14 percent in the month under review, up by 0.26 percent points from 0.88 per cent recorded in March.

According to the bureau, the average annual rate of change of the food sub-index for the 12-month period ended April over the previous 12-month average was 13.34 percent, representing 0.08 percent points lower than the 13.42 percent average annual rate of change recorded in March

The NBS reported that increases were recorded in all Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose (COICOP) divisions that yielded the Headline index.

It stated further that on month-on-month basis, the Headline index increased by 0.94 percent in April, implying a 0.15 percent rate higher than the 0.79  percent rate recorded in March.

This is even as it reported that the percentage change in the average composite CPI for the 12-month period ended April over the average of the CPI for the previous 12-month period stood at 11.31 percent, indicating 0.09 percent points lower than the 11.40 percent recorded in
March.

On the urban inflation rate for the month, the agency reported that the rate increased to 11.70 percent year-on-year in April from 11.54 percent recorded in the preceding month

Also, it stated that the rural inflation rate increased to 11.08 percent in April from 10.99 percent in March, 2019.

The CPI measures the average change over time in prices of goods and services consumed by people for day-to-day living. The construction of the CPI combines economic theory, sampling and other statistical techniques using data from other surveys to produce a weighted measure of average price changes in the Nigerian economy.

The weighting is carried out to capture the importance of the selected commodities in the entire index.