Nigeria’s Disinflation: How inflation trends differed from the NBS’s June rate


Latest report from the National Bureau of Statistics indicates that Nigeria’s inflation rate drops for the seventeenth consecutive time since January 2017. According to the report “the Consumer Price Index (CPI) which measures inflation increased by 11.23 percent (year-on-year) in June 2018. This is 0.37 percent points less than the rate recorded in May 2018 (11.61) percent and represents the seventeenth consecutive disinflation since January 2017.
Increases were recorded in all COICOP divisions that yield the Headline index.
“On a month-on-month basis, the Headline index increased by 1.24 percent in June 2018, up by 0.15 percent points from the rate recorded in May 2018.
The percentage change in the average composite CPI for the twelve months period ending June 2018 over the average of the CPI for the previous twelve months period was 14.37 percent, showing 0.42 percent point lower from 14.79 percent recorded in May 2018.
The report also indicates that the composite food index rose by 12.98 per cent in June (13.45 per cent in May 2018). This aligned with the Infoprations’ analysis. Analysis shows that consumer price index for food index is higher than all items index. The bureau linked the rise in the food index to increase in prices of potatoes, yam and other tubers. Increase in prices of bread and cereals, fish, oils and fats, milk, cheese and eggs, vegetables and fruits as well as meat were also listed by the bureau.

To confirm the bureau’s results on the increase in prices of the listed commodities, Infoprations did trending analysis of bread, fish, milk and eggs. Analysis shows that Nigerians had high interest in fish and milk than bread and egg in June 2018.
For the food consumer price index, the inflation trends predicted 14.3% reduction in prices of food items measured by the country’s statistics agency. When the analysis was done using all the items, it was discovered that 1% increase in inflation trends led to 10.8% increase in the actual consumer price index for all items across the country.

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