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The year-on-year inflation rate measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for February 2019 was 9.2 percent, up by 0.2 percent point over the 9.0 percent recorded in January 2019.

The monthly change rate in February 2019 was 1.0 percent the same as the rate recorded in January 2019.

These were announced by Mr David Kombat, the Acting Government Statistician, at a media briefing, on Wednesday, in Accra.

The Acting Government Statistician explained that the year-on-year non-food inflation rate for February 2019 was 9.7 percent compared with the rate of 9.5 percent recorded in January 2019.

The year-on-year food inflation rate for February 2019 was 8.1 percent compared to 8.0 recorded in January 2019.

The year-on-year food inflation rate of 9.7 percent was 1.6 percentage points higher than the food inflation rate of 8.1 percent.

He explained that in February 2019, the year-on-year food inflation rate for imported items of 10.6 percent was 2.0 percentage points higher than that of locally produced items of 8.6 percent.

The main “price driver” for the non-food inflation rate were clothing and footwear (13.3 percent), Recreation and Culture (13.2 percent), Transport (12.8 percent), Furnishing, Household Equipment and Routine Maintenance (11.6 percent) and Miscellaneous goods and services (10.0 percent).

Four regions - Upper West, Brong Ahafo, Western and Ashanti - recorded inflation rates above the national average; but the Volta Region recorded the same inflation rate as the national average of 9.2 percent.

However, Upper West Region recorded the highest year-on-year inflation rate with 11.4 percent, followed by Brong Ahafo Region with 10.2 percent, while the Upper East Region recorded the lowest year-on-year inflation rate with 7.9 percent in February 2019.

The CPI measures the change over time in the general price level of goods and services that households acquire for the purpose of consumption, with reference to the price level in 2012, the base year, which has an index of 100.