Kenya’s inflation slowed in August, helped by a month-on-month fall in food prices, this is according to the latest data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics.
Inflation was 6.7% year-on-year in August from 7.3% a month earlier, while on a monthly basis inflation was -0.1% from 0.1% a month earlier, the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement.
Kenya’s government has a preferred inflation band of 2.5%-7.5% in the medium term.
When the year-on-year inflation rate fell in July, it was the first time it had returned to within the government’s preferred band since May 2022.
The statistics office said the food and non-alcoholic beverages index fell by 0.5% in August from a month earlier. The index has a 32.91% weighting in calculating Kenyan inflation.
Earlier this month, the central bank held its benchmark lending rate at 10.5%, citing falling inflation.
Prices of most food products dropped in the past month. In particular, the prices of maize grain-loose, maize flour-loose, fortified maize flour, potatoes, and tomatoes decreased by 8.2, 7.3, 6.1, and 3.5 percent, respectively, between July 2023 and August 2023.
Regarding non-food items, the 13kg cooking gas recorded a decrease of 2.8%, attributed to the reduction of levies on Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG).
