Year-on-year inflation remained unchanged at 7.8% in March 2020.

This means the prices of goods and services within the period remained relatively stable.

According to figures by the Ghana Statistical Service, month-on-month inflation between February 2020 and March 2020 was, however, 0.8%.

Like last month, Alcoholic Beverages, Tobacco & Narcotics (11.4%); Transport (9.2%) and Recreation (9.0%) were the divisions with the highest rates of inflation.

The Food and Non-alcoholic Beverages Division recorded a year-on-year inflation rate of 8.4%.

This is .5 percentage points higher than last month’s average and the highest Food inflation since the rebasing in August 2019.

For the non-food inflation, year-on-year inflation for March 2020 was 7.4%, lower than the 7.7% recorded in February 2020.

Between February 2020 and March 2020, the price level of Food and Non-alcoholic beverages increased by 1.5%.

The drivers of non-food inflation during the month were Other Alcoholic Beverages, Tobacco & Narcotics (11.4%); Transport (9.2%) and Recreation (9.0%) and Clothing and Footwear (8.4%).

Similar to last month, Education (-8.9%), Electric Appliances for Personal Care (-8.1%), Cars (-4.4%), Sports Equipment (-3.1%), and Electricity (-0.9%) had negative year-on-year inflation rates.

For food inflation, Cocoa drinks (14.1%); Vegetables (14.1%); Fruits and nuts (12.9%); Ready-made food (10.6%); Coffee and coffee substitutes (8.7%); Fruits and vegetable juices (8.6%); Soft drinks (8.6%) and Fish and other sea food (8.6%) drove inflation up.

Inflation of imported goods was 5.6%, while the inflation of local goods was 8.8% on average. This is the highest rate of local inflation and the lowest rate of imported goods inflation since the rebasing in August 2019.

Month-on-month inflation for imported goods was 0.4%, while month-on-month inflation for local goods was 1%.

For the regions, the year-on-year inflation ranged from 9.2% in the Volta Region to 3.7% in the Upper West Region.

Greater Accra experienced the lowest regional inflation since the rebasing in August 2019.