Inflation ends 2020 at 10.4%

Inflation ended the year 2020 by going up in the month of December 2020 to 10.4%, a marginal increase over that of November 2020, data from the Ghana Statistical Service has revealed.

This means prices of some goods and services went up during the month of the Christmas festivity.

However, average year-on-year inflation for the year 2020 stood at 9.9%.

According to the GSS, a marginal increase in the rate of food inflation which is the highest since April 2020 when the covid-19 pandemic reached its alarming rate in Ghana, triggered the marginal rise in the December 2020 inflation.

Month-on-month inflation between November 2020 and December 2020 was however 0.9%

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Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages registered an inflation rate of 14.1%, whilst that of Non-Food recorded an inflation rate of 7.7%, a decrease from the previous month [November 2020] of 8.3%.

Within the Food Division, Vegetables (24.2%) was the subclass with the highest rate of inflation, followed by Fish and other Seafood (22.9%). Overall month-on-month Food inflation was 1.5% , 1.2 percentage point higher than last month [November 2020] and higher than both on average in 2020 and in the same month last year.

For non-Food Inflation, after a few months of high inflation for Transport, December saw low inflation for Transport; 4.8% year-on-year and 0.1% month-on-month as compared to an average 7.8% year-on-year and 0.4% month-on-month for 2020.

The inflation of imported goods was 6.1%, up from 5.6% last month, while the inflation of local goods was 12.1% on average, up from 11.5% last month. Month-on-month inflation for imported goods was 0.3% and for locally produced goods was 1.1%.

Regional inflation

For regional inflation, the Upper West region recorded the least inflation of 2.1%, followed by Volta with 3.8%.

Inflation was very high in the Greater Accra region, recording 16.3%. Ashanti region registered the second highest inflation rate of 9.4%.

For food inflation, the Upper West region recorded a deflation [reduction in general level of prices] of -0.4%. However, the Greater Accra registered the highest rate of inflation of 19.3%.

The Greater Accra region again registered the highest inflation rate of 14.2% in the Non-Food inflation basket, whilst the Volta region recorded the least inflation rate of 1.5%.