Uganda’s inflation continues to ease with the latest figures showing that it dropped to 3.0 percent for the year ending January 2018 compared to the 3.3 percent registered during the year ended December 2017.
The Uganda Bureau of Statistics (Ubos), the national manager of statistics, says in its latest report for February, that the change represents a 0.3 percentage drop from that recorded during the year ended December 2017.
The drop in January inflation is largely attributed to the annual core inflation which declined to 2.6 percent for the year ending January 2018, when compared to the 3.0 percent recorded for the year ended December 2017. Core inflation excludes transitory or temporary price volatility as in the case of some commodities such as food items and energy products.
According to the report, the drivers for the decreasing annual core inflation were other goods inflation that declined to 2.3 percent for the year ending January 2018 compared to 3.3 percent recorded during the year ended December 2017. The goods include sugar that dropped to minus 4.0 percent for the year ending January 2018 compared to 5.0 percent recorded in December 2017. Bread and Cereals inflation also declined to 2.1 percent in January 2018 compared to 6.1 percent in December 2017.
On the other hand, annual services inflation slightly increased to 3.0 percent for the year ending January 2018 compared to the 2.6 percent recorded during the year ended December 2017.
The annual inflation for food crops and related Items increased to 1.4 percent for the year ending January 2018 compared to minus 0.7 percent for the year ended December 2017. Ubos says the increase was due to the increase in the price of vegetables that registered 2.7 percent for the year ending January 2018 compared to minus 0.9 percent recorded for the year ended December 2017.
Notable food crops that had increased inflation were; Cabbages (from 12.3 percent in December 2017 to 17.8 percent in January 2018), Potatoes (from minus 2.4 percent in December 2017 to 3.9 percent in January 2018) and Carrots (from minus 4.8 percent in December 2017 to 2.3 percent in January 2018).
The Annual Energy, Fuels and Utilities (EFU) inflation decreased to 9.8 percent for the year ending January 2018 compared to 12.5 percent recorded for the year ended December 2017. This was as a result of the annual drop in the prices of charcoal and firewood that decreased to 17.1 percent for the year ending January 2018 compared to 20.2 percent recorded for the year ended December 2017. On the other hand, Liquid Energy Fuels registered 5.2 percent for the year ending January 2018 compared to 5.5 percent recorded in December 2017.
