Increase in food prices pushed inflation to 11.37 %

National Bureau of Statistics The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), said the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures inflation increased by 11.37 per cent (year-on-year) in April 2019.

 The NBS said this in its “CPI and Inflation Report for April’’ released on Wednesday in Abuja.

 According to the bureau, this is 0.12 per cent points higher than the rate recorded in March, 2019 (11.25) per cent. The bureau, however, said the high inflation was caused by increase in prices of some foodstuff.

 The report said the composite food index rose by 13.70 per cent in April compared to 13.45 per cent in March, 2019.

It said the rise in the food index was caused by increases in prices of meat, fish, oils and fats, bread and cereals, milk, cheese and egg, yam and other tubers, fruits and vegetables.

 On month-on-month basis, the report said the food sub-index increased by 1.14 per cent in April, up by 0.26 per cent points from 0.88 per cent recorded in March.

 The average annual rate of change of the food sub-index for the twelve-month period ending April over the previous twelve-month average was 13.34 per cent.

This, it said was 0.08 per cent points from the average annual rate of change recorded in March (13.42) per cent.

 The bureau, however, said increases were recorded in all Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose (COICOP) divisions that yielded the Headline index.

 On month-on-month basis, it said the Headline index increased by 0.94 per cent in April, this was 0.15 per cent rate higher than the rate recorded in March (0.79) per cent.

 The bureau said the percentage change in the average composite CPI for the twelve months period ending April over the average of the CPI for the previous twelve months period was 11.31 per cent.

The bureau said the figures showed 0.09 per cent point from 11.40 per cent recorded in March.

 In addition, it said the urban inflation rate increased by 11.70 per cent (year-on-year) in April from 11.54 per cent recorded in March.

 It also said the rural inflation rate increased by 11.08 per cent in April from 10.99 per cent in March, 2019.

The CPI measures the average change over time in prices of goods and services consumed by people for day-to-day living.

The construction of the CPI combines economic theory, sampling and other statistical techniques using data from other surveys to produce a weighted measure of average price changes in the Nigerian economy.

The weighting occurs to capture the importance of the selected commodities in the entire index.