Nigeria’s headline inflation quickened in December 2024 to 34.80% attributable to elevated transport costs and heightened shopper spending through the holidays, based on information from the Nationwide Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The most recent figures, up from 34.60% reported in November, places one other rate of interest hike in focus on the subsequent Financial Coverage Committee assembly in February.
Meals and transport prices had been the foremost drivers of December 2024 inflation. Meals inflation eased to 39.84% up from 39.93% recorded in November 2024.
“The outlook for inflation in 2025 is hard contemplating the rebasing of the inflation basket,” stated Samuel Onyekanmi, an analyst at Norrenberger. Oyekanmi expects that inflation will start moderating by the second half of the yr and can gradual to the area of 25% to 27% by year-end.
The statistics company rebased its calculation of the patron worth index (CPI) and gross home product (GDP). The NBS calculates inflation utilizing a CPI basket that measures the common change in worth of products and companies consumed by individuals day by day. The NBS, which beforehand tracked 740 of these items and companies, elevated the CPI basket to cowl 960 gadgets, with 2024 as the brand new benchmark yr.
The addition of the brand new gadgets was to mirror the present consumption patterns, Ayo Andrew Anthony, Head of Value Statistics on the NBS, stated Thursday at a sensitisation workshop. New inflation figures based mostly on the brand new worth index can be launched on the finish of January 2025.
The brand new information could lead to decrease inflation as a result of the weighting of meals, which accounts for almost all of family spending and contributes greater than half of the CPI basket, has been reduce to 40.1% from 51.8%.
“The current GDP rebasing and CPI reweighting are important steps ahead in capturing the true breadth of financial exercise. These changes ought to improve information accuracy and assist simpler planning,” stated Olajide Oyadeyi, an economist at Econoday Inc.