THE NATION
Soaring food prices and foreign exchange pressures may have pushed up push inflation rate beyond 29 per cent, it was learnt yesterday.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) will today release the Inflation Report.
Intelligence reports by many economic and finance firms surveyed yesterday by The Nation showed that inflation may have risen by between 50 to 80 basis points last month, the highest since August 2005.
But, experts expressed optimism that early gains from the reforms introduced by the government would ease the pressure on Nigerians and put the economy steady path of recovery.
The increase in inflation in December 2023 indicated that average costs of basic living items rose for every month last year.
Ahead of today’s release of the inflation report by the NBS, independent consumer surveys and econometric models indicated that inflation remained unabated, although the momentum of price increases appeared to be slowing down.
The reports indicated that inflation may rise from 28.2 per cent in November 2023 to estimated ceiling of about 29 per cent in December 2023. It had started the year with 21.8 per cent in January 2023.
Analysts at Afrinvest West Africa expected inflation at 29.0 per cent while Financial Derivatives Company (FDC) estimated current inflation at 28.7 per cent.
Experts agreed that the increase in inflation rate was due mainly to naira depreciation, foreign exchange (forex) pressure and the lingering effect of the removal of subsidy on premium motor spirit (PMS), otherwise known as petrol.
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