Inflation for locally produced goods recorded the highest figure of 14.1% since the rebasing of the calculation for Ghana’s inflation in August last year.
This means that prices of locally made goods recorded an increase of 14.5% in May this year compared to the same period last year.
According to the Government Statistician, Prof. Samuel Kobina Annim, this has been influenced by the reduced imports since March this year, when government imposed the ban on international travel to contain the spread of the COVID-19.
He tells Citi Business News, he expects that other factors like fuel prices could be reviewed to reduce the cost of locally produced items and lessen the burden on consumers.
“So, the variation in locally produced and imported items as was indicated was largely driven by food inflation. For both year on year basis and month on month basis we respectfully see food inflation driving overall inflation by 60% and 82.5% respectively. And obviously because the borders were closed and locally produced items were surging up we saw higher increases in locally produced items. That’s what is accounting for the variation between imported inflation and locally produced inflation,” he said.
The novel Coronavirus induced three-week partial lock down and its subsequent measures have influenced supply and production of some items in the country since the outbreak of the virus in the country.
Earlier, the main contributor to April Inflation which is 10.6% was the inflation of locally produced foods. The change in the prices for food alone was 8% more than the non-food component.
According to the Statistical Service, that surge in inflation rates for food was due to the partial lockdown.
On the other hand, the inflation on imported goods was 4.9%. the lowest rate in that category since the rebasing in August 2019.
Food prices to keep rising due to impact of COVID-19 – Esoko
Commodity price survey service company, Esoko, earlier predicted that the prices of food items will continue to rise in the coming weeks due to the impact of COVID-19 on supply and production of some commodities.
This is based on the fact that for the post lock down period, two of the major staple foodstuff, cassava and maize recorded increase in prices across some markets surveyed in the country.