Inflation declines for sixth straight month, reaches 20.4% in August

The inflation rate for August 2024 decreased to 20.4%, down from 20.9% in July, marking the sixth consecutive month of decline since March, when it was 25.8%.

According to the government Statistician, Prof. Samuel Kobina Annim, the drop in inflation is attributed to a decline in food inflation, which fell to 19.1% in August, while non-food inflation rose to 21.5%.

On a regional basis, the Upper East Region recorded the highest inflation rate of 27.8%, while the Northeast Region had the lowest rate of 10.1%.

The data also showed that locally produced items had an inflation rate of 22.2%, compared to 16.1% for imported items.

Notably, month-on-month food inflation dropped to -0.7% in August, indicating a decrease in general price levels of goods and services between July and August 2024.

This decline, according to Prof. Annim, is a positive sign for the economy, suggesting a slowdown in price increases. However, he cautioned that prices are still rising, and efforts should be made to sustain the downward trend.

“Ghana continues to experience upward changes in prices. Between August 2023 and August 2024, general price levels of goods and services went up by 20.4%. Disaggregating this from a food and non-food inflation perspective, non-food inflation was 21.5% for the month of August 2024 relative to food inflation of 19.1 for the month of August 2024.”

“From a regional perspective, the Upper East region recorded the highest overall rate of inflation of 27.8% and the Northeast region recorded the lowest rate of inflation of 10.1%.

“Disaggregating from a locally produced item and an imported item perspective, we recorded a 6.1 percentage point difference between inflation on locally produced items, and inflation on imported items with inflation on locally produced items at 22.2% and inflation on imported items at 16.1%.”

“We see a marginal increase in inflation on imported items from 15.6% to 16.1%, a 0.5% upward difference, while we see a decline for inflation on locally produced items declining from 23.3% to 22.2%, indicating a 1.1 percentage point decline for inflation on locally produced items.

“On a month-on-month basis, we have recorded a much more significant drop in month-on-month food inflation, dropping to negative 0.7% for the month of August 2024. This means that between July and August 2024, the general price levels of goods and services went down by 0.7%.”

Source: CitiNewsroom