Uganda’s core inflation falls to three.3%, beneath the central financial institution’s goal of 5%

Uganda’s annual inflation price for March 2024 fell barely to three.3%, down from 3.4% in February 2024. This stays beneath the Financial institution of Uganda’s (BoU) goal of lower than 5%. The event comes after the BoU maintained the central bank rate (CBR) at 9.5% in February 2024, in a bid to handle inflation.

Knowledge seen by TechCabal suggests this decline is primarily because of a gradual core inflation price of three.4% in each intervals. The principle driver of this core inflation was the rise in service costs, which jumped to five.5% for the 12 months ending March 2024, up from 5.4% in February 2024.

The rise in service costs was linked to greater passenger transport prices, rising to 2.6% in March 2024 from 1.2% in February 2024. Monetary providers additionally noticed a major soar, reaching 13.4% in March 2024, in comparison with 0% in February 2024. This notable development in monetary service inflation warrants additional investigation, and it’s unclear if the federal government has taken particular measures on this sector.

Read more: Kenya’s March inflation drops to 5.7% as KES gains against the US dollar

Inflation for different items was decrease, reaching 1.6% for the 12 months ending March 2024, down from 1.8% in February 2024. Comparatively steady costs for many items drove this slowdown, save for dried kapenta (silver cyprinid), widespread native gin (waragi), and goat meat, which noticed value will increase in March 2024 in comparison with February 2024.

“Meat costs elevated by 14.0 p.c in March 2024 in comparison with 9.3 p.c recorded in February 2024,” a report from the Uganda Bureau of Statistics states. 

Vitality inflation 

Uganda’s annual power and gasoline inflation slowed to 7.6% in March 2024 in comparison with 8.0% in February 2024. This moderation was because of decreased value will increase for charcoal, firewood, and petrol.

On the identical time, the slowdown in power and gasoline costs suggests potential authorities interventions to stabilise gasoline costs or promote different power sources.