COMESA Region Annual Inflation Rate at 31.6%
The Briefing Issue #60, Tuesday, March 17, 2020
Dear Readers
In the Comesa region, the prices of goods and services increased by an average of 31.6% between January 2019 and January 2020.
This information comes from a report on the year on year inflation rate in the COMESA region, as measured by the Harmonized Consumer Price Indices (HCPI-COMESA), stood at 31.6% in January 2020.
The participating Member States that contribute to HCPI-COMESA registered the following rates of total inflation in January 2020 compared to January 2019:
Burundi 6.2%; Democratic Republic of Congo 4.6%; Djibouti 4.4%; Egypt 12.8%; Eswatini 3.1%; Ethiopia 16.6%; Kenya 5.2%; Madagascar 4.2%; Malawi 11.0%; Mauritius 1.1%; Rwanda 7.9%; Seychelles 0.9%; Sudan 83.0%; Tunisia 6.1%; Uganda 3.9%; Zambia 14.4%; and Zimbabwe 534.8%.
The annual rate measures the price change between a particular month and the same month one year earlier. This measure is responsive to recent changes in price levels, but it can also be influenced by one-off effects in either of the two end months.
Using a particular or common currency, an item that cost an average of 100.00 cents in January 2019 increased to 131.60 cents in January 2020.
According to the HCPI report released by the COMESA Statistics Unit, the rate was based on the main components of household expenditure. Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels recorded the highest annual inflation of +75.9% whilst the restaurants and hotels registered the least average price change of 12.5%.
HCPI-COMESA comprises of 12 divisions of expenditure which registered the following average price changes during the month of January 2020 compared with January 2019: food & non-alcoholic beverages 44.2%; alcoholic beverages and tobacco 30.9%; clothing and footwear 40.3%; housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels 75.9%; furnishings, household equipment, and routine household maintenance 24.3%; health 57.1%; transport 22.0%; communication 26.9%; recreation and culture 20.8%; education 17.9%; restaurants and hotels 12.5% and miscellaneous goods and services 40.5%.
Seychelles recorded the least annual inflation rate of 0.9%, while Zimbabwe recorded the highest year on the year inflation rate of 534.8% followed by Sudan at 83.0%.
HCPIs are produced by the COMESA Secretariat in collaboration with the Member States with the aim of measuring inflation in similar ways and can, therefore, be compared directly with each other without the need for making special adjustments.
RegionWeek Newsroom
IN THE REGION
Kenyan authorities have raided a shop allegedly selling fake coronavirus testing kits. The Standard newspaper reported that police detained 10 people and locked the facility in the capital, Nairobi in Monday's raid. The suspects advertised the testing kits online claiming they sold 600, according to officials."They say that they are left with 400. We want to know who the 600 were sold to," Daniel Yumbwa, Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Council chief executive, told the newspaper. (Aljazeera)
Uganda's central bank said on Tuesday it had sold dollars after a sharp depreciation of the shilling UGX= amid ongoing fears about the potential economic damage from the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in the East African nation. At 0857 GMT, commercial banks quoted the shilling at 3,745/3,755 after weakening to as low as 3,760/3,670 in early morning trading. It closed Monday at 3,735/3,745. "We are intervening to stem volatility in the market," David Sajjabi, the central bank's director for financial markets told Reuters. (Reuters)
Rwanda confirmed two additional coronavirus cases on Monday, bringing the total to seven. The Ministry of Health said the two new cases are a 32-year-old Rwandan woman whose husband was recently confirmed to have coronavirus and had recently traveled to Fiji, the US, and Qatar. The second is a 61-year-old German man who arrived in Kigali on March 13, 2020, from Germany via Istanbul. He arrived without symptoms but developed a cough and went to a health facility on March 15. “All confirmed coronavirus patients remain under treatment in stable condition, isolated from other patients,” the Ministry of Health said in a statement. (The East African)
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