Nigeria’s inflation rate drops for the first-time in 19 months, at 33.40% in July

Nigeria’s headline inflation rate decreased to 33.40% in July 2024, down from 34.19% in June 2024.

This marks the first decline in the headline inflation rate since December 2022, when it last dropped to 21.34%.

The latest inflation rate figures are based on the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) CPI report for July 2024.

According to the report, the headline inflation rate decreased by 0.79 percentage points in July 2024 compared to June 2024.

On a year-on-year basis, the rate was 9.32 percentage points higher than in July 2023, when it stood at 24.08%. This indicates an increase in the headline inflation rate on a year-on-year basis for July 2024 compared to the same month in the previous year. 

Additionally, on a month-on-month basis, the headline inflation rate in July 2024 was 2.28%, slightly lower than the 2.31% recorded in June 2024. 

Food and non-alcoholic beverages contributed 17.30% to the year-on-year inflation followed by housing, water, electricity. gas & other fuel at 5.59% and others.  

Core Inflation 

Core inflation, which excludes the prices of volatile agricultural products and energy, reached 27.47% in July 2024 on a year-on-year basis, marking an increase of 6.99 percentage points compared to the 20.47% recorded in July 2023. 

On a month-on-month basis, the core inflation rate was 2.16% in July 2024, up from 2.06% in June 2024, reflecting an increase of 0.10 percentage points. The twelve-month average core inflation rate stood at 24.65% for the period ending in July 2024, which is 5.81 percentage points higher than the 18.84% recorded in July 2023. 

Food Inflation declines 

In July 2024, the food inflation rate was 39.53% on a year-on-year basis, an increase of 12.55 percentage points compared to the 26.98% recorded in July 2023. This rise in food inflation was driven by higher prices for items such as semovita, yam flour (prepacked), and wheat flour (prepacked). 

On a month-on-month basis, the food inflation rate in July 2024 was 2.47%, which represents a 0.08 percentage point decrease from the 2.55% recorded in June 2024.  

This decline can be attributed to slower price increases for items including tin milk, baby powdered milk (under the milk, cheese, and egg category), mudfish, fresh fish (obokun), snail (under the fish category), date palm fruit (debenu), watermelon, garri, and akpu (fufu) (under the bread and cereals category) etc. 

Urban inflation 

On a year-on-year basis, the urban inflation rate in July 2024 was 35.77%, which is 9.94 percentage points higher than the 25.83% recorded in July 2023. On a month-on-month basis, the urban inflation rate for July 2024 stood at 2.46%, just 0.003 percentage points lower than in June 2024, which also recorded 2.46%.  

The twelve-month average urban inflation rate was 32.89% in July 2024, 10.02 percentage points higher than the 22.87% reported in July 2023. 

Rural Inflation 

In July 2024, the rural inflation rate was 31.26% on a year-on-year basis, which is 8.77 percentage points higher than the 22.49% recorded in July 2023.  

On a month-on-month basis, the rural inflation rate was 2.10% in July 2024, a decrease of 0.07 percentage points from the 2.17% recorded in June 2024. The twelve-month average rural inflation rate for July 2024 was 28.86%, up by 7.82 percentage points from the 21.04% reported in July 2023.