Inflation in March dropped to 6.06%, compared to 6.37% inflation rate recorded in February. The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) included new items such as mobile phone airtime, pay-TV subscription and garbage collection charges to the basket used to measure the cost of living.
The food and non-alcoholic drinks index increased by 0.55% between February and March 2020, with the year-on-year food inflation in March 2020 standing at 11.85%. The increase was due to a rise in the price of some food items such as mangoes, Irish potatoes, onions, and cooking oils.
The price of mangoes, Irish potatoes, onions, and cooking oils increased by 5.39%, 2.33%, 2.06%, and 0.83%, respectively.
On the other hand, the average price of tomatoes and spinach dropped by 6.06% and 4.87%, to retail at KSh120.60 and KSh55.28, respectively.
The average price of one kilogram of loose maize flour also dropped by 1.46% to retail at Sh53.36, compared to KSh54.15 in February.
Alcoholic drinks, tobacco, and narcotics index rose by 0.14%, with their year on year inflation rate hitting 7.63%.
The transport index decreased by 0.10%, attributed to the global decrease in prices of petrol.
The KNBS data shows that mobile airtime is the single biggest expenditure item in the new basket, followed by city bus fare and rental cost for a single room.
At the end of March, KNBS rebased Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Producer Price Index (PPI) to reflect the current situation. The new CPI features a basket of 330 items compared to 234 items previously used in the computation of the index. Further, the weights in the rebased CPI have been updated, and the expenditure groups have been recalculated based on the 2015/16 Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey.
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