February 14, 2018

The inflation rate, measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), has further dropped to 15.13 per cent in January from 15.37 per cent recorded in December, 2017, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has said.

The NBS disclosed this in its CPI report for January 2018 released on Wednesday in Abuja.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures inflation, started the year 2018 increasing by 15.13 percent (year-on-year) in January 2018

According to the bureau, this is 0.24 per cent points lower than the rate recorded in December (15.37 per cent).

It stated that the rate recorded made it the twelfth consecutive disinflation (slowdown in the inflation rate though still positive) in headline year-on-year inflation since January 2017.

It, however, stated that increases were recorded in the Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose (COICOP) divisions that yield the Headline Index.

On a month-on-month basis, the report stated that the Headline index increased by 0.80 per cent in January 2018, 0.21 per cent points higher from the rate of 0.59 per cent recorded in December 2017.

The percentage change in the average composite CPI for the twelve-month period ending January 2018 over the average of the CPI for the previous twelve-month period was 16.22 per cent.

It stated that the figures showed 0.28 per cent point lower from 16.50 per cent recorded in December 2017.

Meanwhile, it stated that the Urban inflation rate rose by 15.56 per cent (year-on-year) in January 2018 from 16.78 per cent recorded in December 2017.

The report stated that the rural inflation rate also eased by 14.76 per cent in January 2018 from 15.02 per cent in December 2017.

On month-on-month basis, the bureau stated the urban index rose by 0.83 per cent in January 2018, up by 0.17 from 0.66 per cent recorded in December 2017.

It stated that the rural index also rose by 0.77 per cent in January 2018, up by 0.23 per cent when compared with 0.54 per cent in December 2017.

According to the report, the corresponding twelve-month year-on-year average percentage change for the urban index is 16.55 per cent in January 2018.

It stated that this was less than 16.92 per cent reported in December 2017, while the corresponding rural inflation rate in January 2018 was 15.89 per cent compared to 16.10 per cent recorded in December 2017.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the CPI measures the average change over time in prices of goods and services consumed by people for day- to-day living.

The construction of the CPI combines economic theory, sampling and other statistical techniques using data from other surveys to produce a weighted measure of average price changes in the Nigerian economy.

Key in the construction of the price index is the selection of the market basket of goods and services.

Every month, 10,534 informants spread across the country provide price data for the computation of the CPI and the market items currently comprise of 740 goods and services regularly priced.