The year-on-year inflation rate for March 2023 was 45.0%, the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has said.

This was announced at a presser in Accra on Wednesday, 12 April 2023.

This means that in the month of March 2023, the general price level was 45.0% higher than in March 2022.

Month-on-month inflation between February 2023 and March 2023 was -1.2%

The Consumer Price Inflation for March 2023 was 166.6 relative to 114.9 for March 2022 using the linked series.

Definition and measurement of CPI and rate of inflation:

▪CPI measures changes in the price of a fixed basket of goods and services purchased by households

▪The assumption is that the basket is purchased each month, hence captures price changes each month

▪The rate of inflation is the relative change in CPI between periods ▪Inflation is reported year-on-year (annual inflation) and month-on-month (monthly inflation), and granulated to determine regional and commodity type and source of inflation

▪CPI does not measure price levels

▪The measures of CPI and inflation are based on the Consumer Price Index Manual: Concepts and Methods ▪Data (market readings) are captured monthly

▪Key variables are prices, quantities and expenditure weights of items ▪Price reference year for the new series is 2021 (2021 = 100)

▪Prices are collected for 47,877 products every month from 16 regions.

▪Price collection is done in 57 markets ▪Prices are collected from about 8,337 outlets.

▪Products are ordered in a hierarchy of 13 Divisions, 44 Groups, 98 Classes, 156 Subclasses and 307 Items.

▪Every Item can only be part of one Subclass, and every Subclass can only be part of one Class, etc.

Disaggregation of March 2023 rate of inflation:

▪Food inflation (0.437) was 50.8%

▪Last month’s Food inflation was 59.1%

▪Month-on-month Food inflation was -0.9%.

▪Non-food Inflation- (0.563) was 40.6%

▪Last month’s Non-Food inflation was 47.9 %

▪Month-on-month Non-Food inflation was -1.5%

▪Inflation for locally produced items was 41.9%

▪Inflation for imported items was 51.6%