Inflation Rate rises to 12.3% - Yemi Kale, Statistician General of the Federation.

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The Statistician-General of the Federation, Yemi Kale, yesterday disclosed that Nigeria’s inflation rate rose to 12.3 per cent in November, as against 11.7 per cent recorded in October. Kale, who disclosed this in a statement in Abuja, said the 0.6 percent monthly change in the composite Consumer Price Index (CPI) was the result of higher prices in both the food and core indices.

According to him: “The rise in the Food Index was as a result of higher food prices in various classes within the index lead by bread and cereals due to higher rice prices.

Also within this class, garri processing slowed, resulting in its higher prices.” Kale hinted that there were also increased prices in vegetables due to the dry season, higher potato, yams and other tubers, and higher fish prices.

Said he: “The higher food prices continue to reflect the impact of recent floods on the production of farm produce. This is resulting to difficulty of moving food products to markets across the country, coupled with other processing and seasonal costs.” He hinted that the average annual rate of rise of the index for the twelve-month period ending in November 2012 was 11.4 per cent when compared to the same period in 2011. He added: “The core sub-index has deviated from its trend over the previous months, increasing to 13.1 per cent. Food prices continue to indicate lagged effects of the floods which occurred from July to mid-October, as well as other demand and supply conditions.”

Speaking on urban inflation, he said that the urban inflation rate was recorded at 15.8 per cent in November, an increase of 0.5 percentage points from the 15.3 per cent increase recorded in October. Adding that the rural index rose to 9.8 per cent in November, as against 9.1 per cent recorded in October. He noted: “On a month on month basis, the Urban All index increased by 0.6 per cent from October, while the Rural All Items index increased by 0.63 when compared with the previous month.

The percentage change in the average composite CPI for the 12-month period ending in November over the average of the CPI for the previous twelve-month period was recorded at 12.1 per cent.” He noted that the corresponding 12-month year on year average percentage change for the Urban and Rural indices was 14.2 per cent and 10.5 per cent respectively.