Key Highlights
- Inflation rate stood at 11.28% in September.
- Inflation rate increases by 0.05% from August.
- Inflation rate increased by 0.84% on month-on-month basis.
- Food inflation stood at 13.31% in August.
- Core Inflation stood at 9.8% in August.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), has released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for September 2018. The CPI measures the average change over time in prices of goods and services consumed by people for day-to-day living.
The report shows inflation increased by 11.28% year-on-year, which is 0.05% higher than the recorded rate in August 2018 (11.23%). This is the second year on year rise, after eighteenth consecutive months of disinflation, since January 2017.
Core Inflation
According to the NBS report, core inflation stood at 9.8% and decreased by 0.2% in the month of September from the 10.00% recorded in August. On a month on basis, it rose by 0.64% in the period under review. It was down by 0.14%, when compared with 0.78% recorded in August.
However, the percentage change in the average composite CPI for the twelve-month period ending September, 2018 over the average of the CPI for the previous twelve-month period was 11.09%, which is a reduction of 0.19% from 11.28% recorded in August.
Food Inflation
The Composite Food Index rose by 13.31%, during the period under review, compared to 13.16% in August 2018. The figure shows food inflation has increased on year on year basis, for the second time in ten months. The reduction was caused by the increase in prices of potatoes, yam and other tubers, fish, bread, fish, meat, milk vegetables and fruits.
Also, on a month-on-month basis, the Food sub-index increased by 1.00% in the month of September 2018, it went up by 0.42% from 1.42% that was recorded in the previous month of August.
The CPI report also shows that the average annual rate of change of the Food sub-index for the twelve-month period ending September 2018 over the previous twelve-month average was 15.92%, which is a reduction of 0.58% from the average annual rate of change recorded in the month of August (16.50%).
Urban Inflation
Meanwhile, the report equally shows that there is a 11.70% increase in the urban inflation rate (year-on-year) in September 2018 from 11.67% recorded in the previous month of August 2018. The rural inflation rate also increased by 10.92%, from 10.84% recorded in the previous month of August 2018.
In the same vein, the Urban Index rose by 0.86% in September 2018 from 1.00% recorded in September, which shows a reduction of 0.23% on a month-on-month basis. For Rural Index, it also rose by 0.82%, from the recorded figure of 0.96% in the previous month of August.
The corresponding 12-month year-on-year rural inflation rate in the period under review is 13.58% compared to 13.95% in September 2018 while the corresponding urban index was 12.80% in September, which is less than 13.21% reported in August, 2018.
All Items Inflation (states)
Meanwhile, during the month under review, Kaduna State recorded the highest all-items-inflation with a figure of 12.93%. Ebonyi State (12.86%) and Bayelsa State (12.83%) followed in that order, while Cross River State (8.42%) recorded the slowest rise in price during the period. Plateau State followed with 8.77% while Ogun recorded 9.22% on a year-on-year all item basis in September, 2018.
Implication
For investors, rising inflation means higher yields on treasury bills and other government securities offered by the CBN. For select borrowers, the rise in inflation, in theory, should lead to higher rates.
The sustained rise in inflation may provide further impetus for the CBN’s Monetary Policy Committee to increase the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) in November.
This second consecutive rise in inflation rate, after 18 consecutive months of disinflation has not come as a surprise for many economic analysts. Most of the macro economic indices since the second quarter of 2018 show that the Nigerian economy seems to have lost the little recovery it made, since exiting recession in Q2 2017 and that the economy is now struggling.
