Despite the huge spending during the concluded Christmas celebration, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has revealed that food inflation in December 2024 dropped to 38.84 per cent, a 0.32 per cent point lower than the 39.16 per cent recorded in November 2024.
This is as the NBS on Wednesday said the headline Inflation rate for December 2024 increased to 34.80 per cent, by a marginal 0.2 per cent against the November 2024 headline inflation rate which stood by 34.60 per cent.
The trend in December 2024, according to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), showed that on a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 5.87 per cent, compared to the rate recorded in December 2023 at 28.92 per cent.
The increase in the headline index for December 2024 was attributed to the rise in the average price of some items in the basket of goods and services at the divisional level.
These increases were observed in food and non-alcoholic beverages at 18.02 per cent, housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuel at 5.82 per cent, clothing & footwear at 2.66 per cent; transport at 2.26 per cent; education at 1.37 per cent and health at 1.05 per cent.
Similarly, on a month-over-month basis, the headline inflation rate in November 2024 also rose to 2.44 per cent which was 0.20 per cent lower than the rate of increase recorded in November 20924 at 2.64 per cent.
The food sub-index for December 2024 decreased marginally by 0.32 per cent to 38.84 per cent against the 39.16 per cent recorded in November 2024.
On a year-on-year, food inflation increased by 5.91 per cent points than the rate recorded in December 2023 by 33.93 per cent.
The rise in Food inflation on a year-on-year basis was attributed to increases in prices of guinea corn, rice, maize grains, rice, etc. (bread and cereals class), yam, water yam, coco yam, among others.
On a month-on-month basis, the food inflation rate in November 2024 rose by 2.98 per cent, which showed a 0.05 per cent point higher than the rate recorded in October 2024 by 2.94 per cent.
The rise in food inflation was caused by an increase in the average prices of palm oil, vegetable oil, mudfish, croaker (apo), fresh fish (obokun), among others.
The average annual rate of Food inflation for the twelve months ending December 2024 over the previous twelve-month average was 39.12 per cent, an 11.16 per cent point increase from the average annual rate of change recorded in December 2023 at 27.96 per cent.
The Urban consumer’s inflation rate on a year-on-year basis stood at 37.29 per cent in the period under review.
This shows a 6.30 per cent point higher compared to the 31.00 per cent recorded in the corresponding month in the year 2023.
On a month-on-month basis, the Urban inflation rate grew by 2.56 per cent in December 2024, which showed a marginal increase of 0.21 per cent compared to 2.77 per cent in November 2024.
The rural consumer’s sub-index in December5 2024 was 32.47 per cent on a year-on-year basis; this was 5.37 per cent higher compared to the 27.10 per cent recorded in December 2023.