Rising food, energy costs push inflation to 8 per cent in May
By Mary Ouko, June 9, 2023
Kenya’s inflation rate for May rose to eight per cent up from 7.9 per cent in April, the National Treasury has said.
Inflation is the rate at which the prices of products and services change over a given period, usually a year.
“The increase in inflation was largely due to increase in prices of commodities under food and non-alcoholic beverages (10.2 per cent), and housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels (9.7 per cent), and transport (10.1 per cent) between May 2022 and May 2023,” said Treasury Cabinet Secretary, Njuguna Ndung’u (pictured) in a statement.
These three divisions account for over 57 per cent of the weights of the 13 broad categories.
Price of commodities under personal care, social protection, and miscellaneous goods and services recorded an increase of 8.1 per cent over the period, in part due to the imported goods.
Between September 2022 and March 2023, inflation rate in the country has been high averaging above nine per cent.
The highest inflation rates in 2023 so far were recorded in the months of February and March both at 9.2 per cent.
It then dropped to 7.9 per cent in April and rose marginally in May to eight per cent.
Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased by 0.9 per cent to an index of 133.01 in May from 131.83 in April.
Non-alcoholic beverages index increased by 1.4 per cent between April 2023 and May 2023. CPI is a measure of the weighted aggregate change in retail prices paid by consumers for a given basket of goods and services.
Retail outlets
Prices of different commodities are collected from selected retail outlets located in 50 data collection zones in Nairobi and other urban areas. The collection is done during the second and third week of every month.
Inflation rate is a percentage change of the CPI between two periods.
CPI is a key macroeconomic indicator used to monitor price movements, to inform and track monetary and fiscal policies and labour negotiations.
According to Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) data, high sugar costs compounded on the food and non-alcoholic beverages index, rising by 49.2 percent year-on-year and by 22.1 percent month over month, with a kilogramme of the sweetener averaging Sh194.29 in May from Sh159.10 in April.—Agencies