March 15, (THEWILL) – Nigeria’s inflation rate inched further north hitting 21.91percent in February 2023 against 21.81 percent earlier in January, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Wednesday. This represents an increase of 0.09 points when compared to January 2023 headline inflation rate.
Similarly, on a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 6.21 percent points higher compared to the rate recorded in February 2022, which was 15.70 percent.
“This shows that the headline inflation rate (year-on-year basis) increased in February 2023 when compared to the same month in the preceding year (i.e., February 2022).” the NBS said.
Analysts had predicted that the February inflation rate would increase further amid severe cash crunch that had plagued the economy since the beginning of the year.
The report showed that food inflation contributed most to the upward move of the inflation rate – a trend that has lingered for a long time.
The NBS said this about select food items, “On a month-on-month basis, the percentage change in the All-Items Index in February 2023 was 1.71%, which was 0.16% points lower than the rate recorded in January 2023 (1.87%).
“This means that in February 2023, on average, the general price level was 0.16% lower relative to January 2023.
“The percentage change in the average CPI for the twelve months period ending February 2023 over the average of the CPI for the previous twelve months period was 19.87%, showing a 3.15% points increase compared to 16.73% recorded in February 2022.
The increases were recorded in all Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose (COICOP) divisions that yielded the headline index, the NBS added.
