WINDHOEK – The latest Consumer Price Index provided by the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA) indicates that the All Items Index for July 2019 was estimated at 137.7 up from 132.8 registered in July 2018. NSA statistics further show that the annual inflation rate slowed to 3.6 percent in July 2019 from 4.5 percent registered in July of the previous year, representing a slowdown of 0.9 percentage points.
The slowdown in the annual inflation rate resulted from declines in the price levels of alcoholic beverages and tobacco (from 6.8 to 3.5 percent); health (from 5.1 to 2.9 percent); hotels, cafes and restaurants (from 6.1 to 3.9 percent); transport (from 8.9 to 6.9 percent); miscellaneous goods and services (from 4.0 percent to 2.3 percent) and housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels (from 3.7 to 2.2 percent), respectively.
The 12 months annual average and monthly average inflation rates for the period August 2018 to July 2019 stood at 4.6 percent and 0.3 percent, while the calendar year average annual and average monthly inflation rates for the period January 2019 to July 2019 were estimated as 4.2 percent and 0.3 percent, respectively.
In addition, while the NSA planned to rebase the CPI basket based on the 2015/16 Namibia Household Income and Expenditure Survey (NHIES) results this could not take place due to methodological changes in the NHIES 2015/16 undertaking. The next NCPI rebasing is expected to be done after conducting the next NHIES during the 2021/22 financial year.