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Drop in food prices force decline in inflation to 2.4%
Inflation has now dropped to way below the Bank of Uganda target of 5 percent due to a decrease in the price of some food items. Photo / File
What you need to know:
- Inflation is now below Bank of Uganda target of 5 percent
A drop in the prices of maize flour, sugar and rice, among others continued to drive down headline inflation, declining to 2.4 percent from 2.7 percent in September.
Data from Uganda Bureau of Statistics (Ubos) yesterday indicated that maize flour registered a negative inflation of 23 percent compared to - 3.8 percent, while rice inflation fell to 0.2 percent from 5.2 percent in September.
While presenting the Consumer Price Index in Kampala yesterday, Mr Edgar Niyimpa, the Ubos principal statistician price statistics, said during the last one year sugar inflation had fallen to 16.3 percent, while rice and silver fish had dropped to 0.2 percent and -10.7 percent from 5.4 percent, signalling a general decline in commodity prices.
During the period, core inflation dropped to 2 percent from 2.4 percent in September, thus contributing to overall decline of the general inflation outlook, which is currently far below the Central Bank target of 5 percent.
However, services inflation increased to 2.2 percent compared to 1.6 percent due to education services inflation, which increased to 6.1 percent from 3.8 percent in September.
Mr Niyimpa also indicated that inflation had slowed down due to a drop in food crops and related items inflation, which dropped to 6.6 percent compared to 7.9 percent in September as a result of fresh cassava prices that dropped to - 6.6 percent from 6 percent.
Green cabbage prices have also dropped, registering inflation of - 10.8 percent from 0.2 percent in September, while Irish potatoes inflation dropped to - 0.9 percent from 4.1 percent.
However, energy fuel and utilities inflation increased to 2.2 percent compared to - 1.2 percent due to volatility in fluid fuels prices, which saw petrol inflation increase by 1.8 percent compared to 8.4 percent in September.
Electricity inflation dropped to - 1.4 percent, while water charges inflation rose to 13 percent compared to 9.7 percent, following an increase in water tariff.
Diesel inflation increased 3.8 from - 3.4 percent in September.
