Inflation falls to 7.5% in May 2021

• May 2021 inflation was 7.5%, after a year of high year-on-year inflation due to a peak in inflation in April and May 2020

• Inflation rate for the Eastern region was from 8.2% to 4.3%, and Ashanti region from 9.8% to 5.9%

• This month Food inflation (5.4%) was lower than last month (6.5%) and the average of the previous 12 months (11.3%)

Latest figure from the Ghana Statistical Service shows that inflation reduced by 1% to 7.6% in May 2021, indicating a likelihood of a drop in the cost of credits.

According to the figures by the Ghana Statistical Services, Food inflation was 5.4% in May 2021, lower than the 6.5% recorded in April 2021. Non-food Inflation was 9.2%, also lower than 10.2% recorded the previous month.

Inflation for locally produced items was 7.3%, whilst inflation for imported items was 7.3%.

The contribution of transport to inflation further increased from 11.8% in April 2021 to 16.5% in May 2021.

Overall month-on-month Food inflation was 1.3%, which is above the average month-on-month inflation.

However, one year ago, in May 2020 we observed a peak in inflation of 11.3%, because such a peak did not occur this year, year-on-year inflation is relatively low in the month of May 2021.

The statistics show that the fall in inflation signifies that the rate at which prices of some goods and services were increasing has slowed down.

Food inflation particularly fruit and vegetables as well as soft drinks slow down considerably in May 2021, despite seven sub-classes recording inflation higher than the overall food inflation of 5.4%.

For the first time in one and half years, inflation for imported goods reached parity with locally produced items.

The inflation for imported goods was 7.3% down from 7.4% last month, while the inflation for locally produced items was also 7.3% on average down from the 8.7% recorded last month.

Regional inflation

The Northern and Bono Ahafo regions with inflation rates of 9% and 7.4% respectively.

Western and Eastern region recorded the lowest inflation rate of 2.6 per cent each respectively.

And the Greater Accra region on the other hand still registered the highest rate of inflation of 12.3% in May.