A few weeks before the presidential elections, socio-economic indicators are improving. The GDP growth rate is improving to 1%, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INS), and the unemployment rate is falling to 16%.
And it won’t be the price index that bucks this trend, with inflation falling from 7% in July to just 6.7% a month later, according to the INS.
The INS indicated that the inflation rate fell to 6.7% in August 2024, compared to 7% in July, according to a note on the consumer price index for August 2024, published on Thursday.
This fall in inflation, despite the monthly increase, is essentially due to the slowdown in the annual rate of increase in the ‘food’ group (8.5% in August 2024 compared with 9.4% in July 2024), explains the INS.
Food prices up 8.5%
In August 2024, food prices increased by 8.5% year-on-year. This increase was mainly due to the prices of sheepmeat rising by 23.9%, edible oils by 19.1%, beef by 15%, condiments by 13.8%, fresh fish by 12.8% and poultry by 11.7%.
The price of intermediate goods went up by 6.7%, driven by a 9.9% increase in the price of clothing and footwear and an 8.4% rise in the price of household goods.
Services prices rose by 5.1% year-on-year, mainly due to an 8.7% rise in the price of restaurants, cafés and hotels.
Core inflation down slightly to 6.4% in August
Core inflation (excluding food and energy) fell slightly to 6.4% in August from 6.5% in the previous month. Prices for unregulated goods rose by 7.5% year-on-year.
Prices of regulated products increased by 3.8%. Food with unregulated prices rose by 9.4%, compared to 2.6% for those regulated.
The ‘industrial goods’ and ‘services’ groups were the main contributors to headline inflation, with 2.5% and 1.7% respectively.
According to the INS, the groups ‘Free non-food’ and ‘Free food’ made the largest contribution to inflation, at 3.5% and 2.3% respectively. On the other hand, the ‘Regulated food’ group made the smallest contribution, at 0.1%.
Consumer prices up by 0.3% in August 2024
Food prices up by 1.5
Consumer prices rose by 0.3% in August 2024 compared with July 2024, according to the INS note on the consumer price index for August 2024. This increase is mainly due to a 1.5% rise in food prices and a 1.1% rise in the prices of the ‘education services’ group, while clothing prices fell by 4.5% due to summer sales, the INS said.
Over one month, food prices rose by 1.5%, with poultry up by 4.4%, fresh vegetables up by 3.8%, dried fruit up by 3.7%, fresh fruit up by 2.6%, eggs up by 2.2% and fresh fish up by 2.1%.
On the other hand, the price of beef fell by 0.5%.
However, prices of educational products and services rose by 1.1%. The INS explained this by a 1.4% rise in the price of school stationery and a 1.4% rise in the price of private secondary education services.
Prices for clothing fell by 4.5%, for footwear by 5.1% and for clothing accessories by 0.5% due to the start of the summer sales season.
