Kenya: Inflation increases in August
Inflation ticked up to 4.4% in August from July’s 4.3%. Looking at the details of the release, faster price pressures for housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels drove the increase. More positively, price growth for transportation plus food and non-alcoholic beverages softened.
Meanwhile, the trend pointed down, with annual average inflation edging down to 5.8% in August (July: 6.0%).
Lastly, consumer prices fell 0.05% from the previous month in August, a more moderate decrease than July’s 0.21% drop.
Oxford Economics’ Shani Smit-Lengton commented:
“While it remains uncertain whether some of the tax measures outlined in the Finance Act 2023 and the Finance Bill 2024 will be re-introduced, the government will probably avoid imposing significant tax increases on essential items such as food, which makes up 33% of the CPI basket, and possibly fuel, which accounts for 10% of the CPI basket. As such, we predict CPI inflation to average 5.1% in 2024, which is only a minor adjustment to our previous forecast and incorporates recent revisions to our global commodity prices.”