Uganda consumer inflation at highest level since beginning of the year
Uganda has continued to experience a rise in consumer price index from 6.8 percent experience in April to 7.2 per cent in May, Uganda Bureau of Statistics data shows.
This jump is so far the highest since the beginning of 2017 and is mainly due to a rise of food crops inflation which rose to 23.1% in May 2017 compared to 21.6% recorded for the year ended April 2017.
According to the report, the driver of food crop inflation was sub-class vegetables, that increased to 15.5% in May 2017 from 14.0% registered during the year ended April 2017. Fruits inflation also registered a 37.2% rise for the year ending May 2017 compared to the 35.5% recorded for April 2017. The prices of milk, sugar and maize flour remained high in May due to the effects of a lingering dry spell and other quirks of nature.
Core Inflation, which excludes food, fuel, electricity and metered water, rose to 5.1% for the year ending May 2017 compared to the 4.9% recorded for April 2017, mainly due to such as processed foods, clothing and footwear and services such as hair dressing, education, rent, health, financial and legal services, hotels and restaurants. Services inflation, however, dropped to 4.4% for the year ending May 2017 compared to the 4.7% recorded in April 2017.
The report said that energy, fuels and utilities (EFU) inflation increased to 7.0% in May 2017 from 5.3% in April 2017, due to an increase in solid fuels (charcoal & firewood) inflation.
Bank of Uganda's (BoU) medium target is to control core inflation at 5%.
