Core inflation pulls down March inflation

Apr 01, 2017

However, food crops prices rose to 20.7% in March from to 18.8% recorded in February.

Headline inflation has dropped to 6.4% in March from 6.7% that was recorded in February 2017 due to decline in annual core inflation.

Addressing the media on Friday at statistics offices in Kampala, Sam Kaisiromwe, senior statistician at Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) said that core inflation declined to 4.8% in March from 5.7%.

"The decrease was due to service inflation which registered 4.7% in March for the year ending March 2017 compared to 5.9% recorded in February 2017," Kaisiromwe said.

It should be noted that core inflation which excludes food, fuel, electricity and metered water which are volatile to price changes is monitored by the Central bank for its monetary policy.

On a monthly basis, the headline index dropped to 0.6% in March from 0.9% in February.

However, food crops prices rose to 20.7% in March from to 18.8% recorded in February.

Kaisiromwe added: "The rise in prices of food crops was mainly due to rise in prices of fruits to 35.6% in March compared to 28.5% recorded in February."

Furthermore, there was a decrease in prices of vegetables.

However, annual energy fuel and utilities (EFU) which consists of electricity, charcoal, firewood, petrol, diesel, paraffin and cooking gas increased to 3.8% from 1.0%. The drivers were solid fuel and liquid fuel.

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