By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigeria’s inflation rate rose in September 2024 for the first time in three months, advancing to 32.70 per cent from 32.15 per cent in August.
This beat analysts’ expectations from Meristem Research which noted that Nigeria’s headline inflation for September 2024 should rise by 0.06 per cent to 32.21 per cent in the period under review.
Looking at the movement, the September 2024 Headline inflation rate showed an increase of 0.55 per cent compared to the August 2024 headline inflation rate.
On a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 5.98 per cent points higher than the 26.72 per cent recorded in September 2023.
This shows that the headline inflation rate (year-on-year basis) increased in September 2024 when compared to the same month in the preceding year (i.e., September 2023).
Furthermore, on a month-on-month basis, the headline inflation rate in September 2024 was 2.52 per cent, which was 0.30 per cent higher than the rate recorded in August 2024 (2.22 per cent).
This means that in September 2024, the rate of increase in the average price level is higher than the rate of increase in the average price level in August 2024.
The food inflation rate in September 2024 was 37.77 per cent on a year-on-year basis, 7.13 per cent points higher than the rate recorded in September 2023 (30.64 per cent).
The rise in food inflation on a year-on-year basis was caused by increases in prices of the following items: guinea corn, rice, maize grains, beans, etc (bread and cereals class), yam, water yam, cassava tuber, etc (potatoes, yam & other tubers class), beer (local and foreign) (tobacco class), Lipton, Milo, Bournvita, etc (coffee, tea & cocoa class) and vegetable oil, palm oil, etc (oil & fats class).
On a month-on-month basis, the Food inflation rate in September 2024 was 2.64 per cent which showed a 0.27 per cent increase compared to the rate recorded in August 2024 (2.37 per cent).
The average annual rate of Food inflation for the twelve months ending September 2024 over the previous twelve-month average was 37.53 per cent which was an 11.88 per cent point increase from the average annual rate of change recorded in September 2023 (25.65 per cent).