Falling food prices in May helped slow the inflation rate in Rwanda’s urban centres for the first time in seven months to 4.54 percent, official data showed on Thursday.
The National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda said the country’s urban consumer price index rose less than 0.1 percent in May from a month earlier as a 0.92 percent fall in food and non-alcoholic beverages prices was off-set by increases in the cost of transport and housing and utilities.
“The increase in the consumer prices index … is attributable primarily to the increase in housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels (0.73 percent) and Transport (0.87 percent),” the statistics office said in a statement.
Year-on-year, food prices rose by 4.69 percent in urban areas.
Rwanda’s overall inflation rate, which has a higher weighting for food, increased to 3.82 percent in May from 3.05 percent a month earlier.
Rwanda has the lowest inflation rate within the five-nation East African Community trade bloc. Uganda has the highest inflation rate at 16.0 percent, followed by Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi and then Rwanda.
Rwanda’s Finance Minister John Rwangombwa said in his budget last week he forecast inflation rising to about 7.5 percent this year. This story was first published by Reuters.
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