The Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures the rate of price change of goods and services in the country inched up by 0.1 percentage point from 9.8 per cent to 9.9 per cent using the old base year for the month of April.
Using the new base year for the same month of April, the CPI again rose by 0.3 percentage points to 10.5 per cent.
The CPI had marginally dropped at the end of March by 0.2 percentage points from 10.4 at the end of February 2007.
Earlier, the rate had fallen from 10.9 to 10.4 per cent between January and February 2007, whiles it was unchanged in January this year when compared with the December 2006, figure.
Giving the figures for the month of April at the press briefing in Accra last Friday, the Head of Economic Statistics Division of the Ghana Statistical Service, Mr Magnus Ebo Duncan, said the two main contributors for the upward movement of the index came from food and non- food components of 2.42 points and 0.85 points respectively.
He explained that under the food and beverages group, vegetables including potatoes and other tuber vegetables group contributed the highest upward movement of 0.89 points.
“Yam, tomatoes and plantain were the highest contributors with 0.28 points, 0.25 points and 0.24 respectively”, he stated.
Mr Duncan stated that within the non-food group, transport contributed the highest to the upward movement of the index with 0.43 points where petrol which contributed 0.08 points, and the intercity bus fare which accounted for 0.33 points were the highest contributors.
The Ghana Statistical Service has re-based the CPI year to 2002 from the old base year of 1997, starting from January this year.
The new base year featured a number of changes as compared to the old one, which included the updates in the weights of the consumption basket from the 1991/1992 Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS) expenditure levels to the 1989/1999 GLSS expenditure levels”.
Additionally, the presentation of the CPI had been expanded to include indices on the entire 10 regions of the country.
Again, under the new base year, classification used for the presentation of the results had also been moved from the Central Product Classification (CPC) to a new Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose (COICOP).
This classification has been adopted by the second Monetary Union of West Africa (WAMU) as the basis for harmonising CPIs in member states.
Under the new base year the basket of goods and services in the new CPI still stood at 242 goods and services which had been grouped according to a new classification of 12 groups and 40 sub-groups under the COICOP.
According to the new CPI, the weights for the food and beverages have been reduced by 6.99 points from 51.9 to 44.91, while new additions such as hotels, cafes and restaurants have been given a weight of 8.28 points.
The weight for clothing and footwear has also increased to 11.29 points from 9.58, while that for housing and utilities has dropped from 9.24 points to 6.98 points.
Story by Boahene Asamoah
Lay KPMG audit report on SML-GRA contract before Parliament – Isaac Adongo tells...
Supervisor remanded for stabbing businessman with broken bottle and screwdriver
NDC watching EC and NPP closely on Returning Officer recruitment — Omane Boamah
Your decision to contest for president again is pathetic – Annoh-Dompreh blasts ...
Election 2024: Security agencies ready to keep peace and secure the country — IG...
People no longer place value in public basic schools; new uniforms, painting wil...
'Comedian' Paul Adom Otchere needs help – Sulemana Braimah
Ejisu by-election: Only 33% of voters can be swayed by inducement — Global InfoA...
Minority will expose the beneficial owners of SML, recover funds paid to company...
Prof. Opoku-Agyemang has ‘decapitated’ the NPP’s strategies; don’t take them ser...
