APA – Lagos (Nigeria)
Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has announced that the country’s headline inflation rate in March this year rose to 22.04 per cent compared to 21.91 per cent recorded in February 2023.
The NBS said in its monthly report of the Consumer Price Index, which measures inflation, that the current trend showed that the March 2023 inflation rate represented an increase of 0.13% points when compared to February 2023 headline inflation rate.
It added that on a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 6.13 per cent points higher compared to the rate recorded in March 2022 which was 15.92 per cent.
This, according to the NBS, shows that the headline inflation rate (year-on-year basis) increased in March 2023 when compared to the same month in the pre ceding year of March 2022.
The NBS explained that the increase recorded in March was caused by the increase in the headline index of the following items, food & non-alcoholic beverages (11.42%); housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuel (3.69%); clothing & footwear (1.69%); transport (1.43%); furnishings, household equipment & maintenance (1.11%); education (0.87%); health (0.66%); miscellaneous goods & services (0.37%); restaurant & hotels (0.27%); alcoholic beverage, tobacco & kola (0.24%); recreation & culture (0.15%) and communication (0.15%).
“However, on a month-on-month basis, the All-Items Index in March 2023 was 1.86%, which was 0.15% points higher than the rate recorded in February 2023 (1.71%). This means that in March 2023, on average, the general price level was 0.15% higher relative to February 2023.
“The percentage change in the average CPI for the twelve months period ending March 2023 over the average of the CPI for the previous twelve months period was 20.37%, showing a 3.83% increase compared to 16.54% recorded in March 2022,” the NBS said.
GIK/APA
Nigeria’s inflation rate in March peaks at 22.04%
