Continuing its downward trend, the inflation rate dropped to 7.8% in January 2024, compared with 8.1% in December 2023, according to a note entitled “The consumer price index, January 2024,” published on Monday by the National Institute of Statistics (INS).
The fall in inflation, despite an increase in January, is due to the slowdown in the pace of price increases between January 2024 and December 2023, compared with the same period between 2023 and 2022.
In January, food prices rose by 12.1% year-on-year, mainly due to a 35% increase in the price of coffee powder, a 22.9% increase in the price of sheep meat, a 22.7% increase in the price of edible oils, a 20% increase in the price of condiments, a 19.3% increase in the price of fresh vegetables, a 14% increase in the price of beef and an 11.9% growth in the price of fresh fish.
Prices for industrial goods and services went up by 6.9% over the year, driven by a 5% rise in construction materials, a 9.9% increase in clothing and a 7.4% growth in household g
oods.
In services, the 5.5% year-on-year increase was mainly due to an 11.1% rise in restaurant, café and hotel services, a 13.8% increase in financial services and a 5.1% rise in insurance services.
The core rate (excluding food and energy) fell to 6.8% from 7.1% in the previous month.
Prices of unregulated products rose by 9.3% year-on-year, while prices of unregulated food increased by 13.5%. Prices for regulated products also went up by 3% and regulated food products grew by 3.4%.
The main contributors to overall inflation were the groups ‘manufactured goods’ and ‘fresh food’, at 2.6% and 2% respectively.
In terms of free food products, the largest contributions to inflation came from the groups ‘non-preserved food’ and ‘fresh food’, at 4% and 3.1% respectively. The ‘regulated food’ group made the smallest contribution, at 0.1%.
Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse