NIGERIA’s headline inflation rate jumped up to 34.80% in December 2024 from 34.60% in November 2024, the National Bureau of Statistics said Wednesday.
The apex government data agency made this known in its latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) report which measures the rate of change in prices of goods and services.
A report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said the increase was due to December festive period increases in demand for goods and services.
According to the NBS, on a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 5.87% higher than the rate recorded in December 2023 (28.92%).
This shows that the Headline inflation rate (year-on-year basis) increased in December 2024 compared to the same month in the preceding year (i.e., December 2023).
“On the contrary, the month-on-month basis, the Headline inflation rate in December 2024 was 2.44%, which was 0.20% lower than the rate recorded in November 2024 (2.64%). This means that in December 2024, the rate of increase in the average price level is slightly lower than the rate of increase in the average price level in November 2024,” it said.
The report further stated that food inflation rate in December 2024 was 39.84% on a year-on-year basis, 5.91% points higher compared to the rate recorded in December 2023 (33.93%).
“The rise in food inflation on a year-on-year basis was caused by increases in prices of the following items; Yam, Water Yam, Sweet Potatoes, etc (Potatoes, Yam & Other Tubers Class), Beer, Pinto (Tobacco Class), Guinea Corn, Maize Grains, Rice, etc (Bread and Cereals Class), and Dried Fish-Sadine, Catfish Dried, etc (Fish Class).
“On a month-on-month basis, the Food inflation rate in December 2024 was 2.66% which shows a 0.32% decrease compared to the rate recorded in November 2024 (2.98%). The decline can be attributed to the rate of decrease in the average prices of Local Beer (Burukutu), Pinto (Tobacco Class), Fruit Juice in tin, Malt drinks, etc (Soft Drinks Class), Rice, Millet, Maize flour, etc (Bread and Cereals Class) and Water Yam, Irish Potatoes, Coco Yam, etc (Potatoes, Yam & Other Tubers Class).
“The average annual rate of Food inflation for the twelve months ending December 2024 over the previous twelve-month average was 39.12%, which was 11.16% points higher compared with the average annual rate of change recorded in December 2023 (27.96%),” it added.
