The Statistics Botswana’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) latest edition has indicated that the decrease on the overall annual inflation rate between February 2013 and February 2014 was influenced by stable prices of commodities especially major components such as transport and food and non-alcoholic beverages.
Information contained in the February 2014 index also highlighted that the annual inflation rate was 4.6 percent in February 2014, a rise of 0.2 of a percentage point on the January 2014 rate of 4.4 percent. The annual rate of 4.6 percent realized in February 2014 was lower than the 7.5 percent recorded during the same month in 2013.
“The inflation rates for regions between January and February, indicated that cities and towns’ went up to 4.5 from 4.0 percent, urban villages’ increased from 4.5 percent to 4.7 percent, while rural villages’ rose to 5.1 from 5.0 percent,” reads the report.
On the restaurants and hotels index group, it upped from 221.9 to 223.1, registering an increase of 0.5 percent between January and February. It is said that the increase was attributed to the increase in the section indices of restaurants, cafes and the like which increased by 0.6 percent and accommodation services which went up by 0.4 percent.
“The clothing and footwear index group registered an increase of 0.5 percent from 156.9 to 157.7, between January and February. This was due to a general increase in the constituent section indices, clothing (0.6 percent), other articles of clothing (0.4 percent), and footwear (0.3 percent),” stated in the price index.
The Statistics Botswana Consumer Price Index highlighted that all tradable inflation rate rose by 0.4 of a percentage point between January and February, from 4.4 to 4.8 percent adding that the domestic tradable inflation rate recorded an increase of 1.1 percentage points, from 5.8 percent in January to 6.9 percent in February.
“Non-Tradable inflation went up by 0.1 of a percentage point in February, registering 4.5 percent against 4.4 percent in January, while the Imported Tradable inflation rate registered a drop of 0.1 of a percentage point from 3.6 to 3.5 percent between January and February,” reads the latest edition.
