The National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, yesterday said that Nigeria’s consumer prices in June rose at the slowest pace in two and half years.
In a report, the NBS revealed that the annual consumer inflation rate was 11.2 percent compared with 11.6 percent in May, even as food costs also climbed the least since March 2016.
It further said the inflation rate fell despite the fact that the Nigerian government had started releasing funding for its record 2018 budget of 9.12 trillion naira ($25 billion), which some analysts had anticipated would cause prices to rise
Price pressures are still expected to kick in on growing election-related spending ahead of February’s federal and state vote, with President Muhammadu Buhari seeking a second mandate.
The central bank’s monetary policy committee will this week to announce its decision on its main interest rate, which it has held at 14 percent since July 2016 to curb inflation.
The bank targets an inflation rate of 6 percent to 9 percent and has signaled rate cuts when price growth moves closer to this band.
Food prices increased 12.98 percent in June from a year earlier, a seventh straight month of deceleration, the agency said.
