March inflation is 10.3% - GSS report

This is no different from what was recorded in the month of February 2021.

Month-on-month inflation between February and March 2021 was 0.9% (slightly higher than last month).

’Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas’ (29.0% up from 23.4% last month) and ‘Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages (10.8% down from 12.3% last month) recorded the highest rates of inflation.

Regional Inflation

According to the GSS, at the regional level, the overall year-on-year inflation ranged from 5.3% in the Volta Region to 17.0% in Greater Accra Region.

Only in the Greater Accra Region (11.5% Food inflation and 21.0% Non-Food inflation) that Non-Food outpace Food inflation.

The biggest difference in Food and Non-Food inflation was again recorded in Eastern Region (14.7% and 1.7% respectively).

Overall, year-on-year inflation went up in four regions compared to last month.

Food and Non-Food Inflation

This month Food inflation (10.8%) was both lower than last month (12.3%) and the average of the previous 12 months (12.8%).

This leads to Food inflation decreasing in its contribution to total inflation to 46.3%, the lowest contribution observed since February 2020.

Overall month-on-month Food inflation was 0.2%. Only Education Services recorded no change between February and March 2021, all other Divisions recorded positive month-on-month inflation.

Within the Food Division, Tea (16.7%) recorded the highest rate of inflation. Vegetables and Fish and Other Seafood recorded negative month-on-month inflation (-0.1% and -0.1% respectively) in March 2021.

In contrast to Food inflation, Non-Food year-on-year inflation on average went up this month compared to last month (from 8.8% to 10.0%). Out of the 13 Divisions, six had higher year-on-year inflation in March 2021 than the rolling average over the last 12 months.

Especially, housing recorded a high rate of inflation (29.0%).

In Greater Accra, a high rate of month-on-month inflation for Housing was recorded. This high rate can be attributed to an observed increase in rent prices. Average month-on-month Non-Food inflation was 1.4%. This is same as what was recorded for last month (1.4%).