Ghana: Inflation accelerates in June from May
Latest reading: Consumer prices rose 5.3% in annual terms in June, following a 3.7% increase in the previous month.
Relative to the prior month’s data, there were higher price pressures for food and non-alcoholic beverages (+3.9% in annual terms vs +3.3% in May), transport (+9.1% vs -2.8% in May), clothing and footwear (+2.6% vs +1.8% in May) and recreation and entertainment (+6.5% vs +4.2% in May). In contrast, price pressures for housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels eased in June (+7.9% vs +11.8% in May).
Finally, consumer prices increased 0.23% in June on a month-on-month basis, following a 1.08% rise in the previous month.
Panelist insight: Commenting on the outlook, Ludovica Ambrosino, analyst at Goldman Sachs, said:
“Looking ahead, we expect inflation to increase moderately, driven by the residual pass-through of higher oil prices, a weaker currency and unfavourable base effects.”
Meanwhile, Oxford Economics projects a higher increase in inflation, and their senior economist Leeuwner Esterhuysen recently said:
“[…] we […] expect inflation to breach the central bank upper limit of 10% in Q4 this year due to unfavourable base effects and the lagged impact of war-related shocks on the domestic price environment.”