Inflation For May Drops 23.1% from 25.0%

Ghana’s inflation rate for May 2024 has decreased to 23.1%, down from 25.0% in April 2024. This represents a notable 1.9 percentage point reduction between April and May 2024, according to the latest figures released by the Ghana Statistical Service.

A major contributor to this overall drop in inflation was the decrease in food inflation, which fell to 22.6% in May from 26.8% in April. Despite this positive trend in food prices, non-food inflation saw a slight uptick, rising to 23.6% in May from 23.5% the previous month.

Further breakdowns of the data show that inflation for both locally produced and imported items also declined. Locally produced items saw their inflation rate fall to 24.7%, while imported items experienced a drop to 19.6%.

Speaking to journalists in Accra, Government Statistician Professor Samuel Kobina Annim highlighted the need for policymakers to focus on transportation costs, which recorded a significant month-on-month inflation rate of 10.5%. This is in stark contrast to the overall month-on-month inflation rate of 3.2%.

“In this case what I want the media and policymakers to engage is not food inflation but in this case, transport where we are seeing month-on-month transport inflation of 10.5% when overall month-on-month is 3.2% and we all do appreciate how transport permits across the other items that we have in the basket for the computation,” Professor Annim stated.