Inflation eases to 3.2pc despite rise in commodity prices
The rate of increase of basic goods and services has been consistently dropping throughout this year to 3.2 per cent in December. Photo/FILE
What you need to know:
Overall inflation rate stood at 3.20 per cent in December.
According to new data released by KNBS, all the commodity groups that are used to track the rate of inflation registered increased prices when compared to the same month last year.
Prices of basic goods and services increased at a rate of 3.2 per cent in December, the slowest pace in more than two years.
The rate of increase of basic goods and services has been consistently dropping throughout this year, having come down from a peak of 19.72 per cent in November 2011 to 3.25 per cent last month.
In October 2010 the rate of inflation stood at 3.18 per cent having dropped from 3.21 per cent in September the same year but thereafter, prices of basic goods and services consistently began going up each month to the peak in November last year.
“The overall inflation rate stood at 3.20 per cent in December,” said the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) in a statement on Friday.
According to new data released by KNBS, all the commodity groups that are used to track the rate of inflation registered increased prices when compared to the same month last year.
The prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages went up by 1.73 per cent while the cost of communicating went up by only 0.11 per cent.
Prices that went up the most were those tracked by the restaurants and hotels commodity group which rose by 8.41 per cent between December 2012 and the same month last year.
This was followed by prices tracked by the education and clothing and footwear commodity groups with went up by 6.63 and 6.21 per cent respectively.
The average price of a kilogramme of sugar stood at Sh122.07 this month compared to Sh162.29 in December last year while the average price of 2 kilogrammes of sifted maize meal stood at Sh112.36 compared to Sh116.53 over the same period of time.
A litre of kerosene has been averaging Sh86.01 compared to Sh85.97 in December last year while a litre of diesel has been averaging Sh106.83 compared to Sh109.48 over the same period last year.
