{"id":27700,"date":"2021-04-15T16:22:26","date_gmt":"2021-04-15T14:22:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ijg.net\/research\/?p=27700"},"modified":"2021-04-16T10:45:57","modified_gmt":"2021-04-16T08:45:57","slug":"ncpi-march-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ijg.net\/research\/ncpi-march-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"NCPI \u2013 March 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The Namibian annual inflation rate rose to 3.1% y\/y in March, with prices in the overall NCPI basket increasing by 0.5% m\/m. On a year-on-year basis, overall prices in six of the twelve basket categories rose at a quicker rate in March than in February and five of the basket categories recording slower rates of inflation, while education remained constant. Prices for goods increased by 3.9% y\/y while prices for services rose 2.1% y\/y.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Food & non-alcoholic beverages, the second largest basket item by weighting, continued to be the largest contributor to annual inflation, accounting for 1.2 percentage points of the total 3.1% inflation rate. Prices in this category increased by 1.2% m\/m and 6.6% y\/y. Prices in all the thirteen sub-categories recorded price increases on an annual basis. The largest increases were observed in the prices of meat which increased by 13.33% y\/y, fruit which rose by 10.73% y\/y and oils and fats, which increased 9.37% y\/y. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The alcoholic beverages and tobacco basket item was the\nsecond largest contributor to the annual inflation rate in March, with prices\nincreasing by 3.8% y\/y. On a monthly basis, prices in this basket item fell by\n0.2%. The alcoholic beverages sub-category recorded a price decrease of 0.4%\nm\/m, but an increase of 2.5% y\/y. Tobacco prices rose 0.5% m\/m, and 9.8% y\/y.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The housing and utilities, transport and miscellaneous\ncategories each accounted for 0.30 percentage points of the total annual\ninflation rate in March. Price inflation for housing and utilities remained\nsteady on a monthly basis but rose 1.1% y\/y. The regular maintenance and repair\nof dwellings subcategory recorded an increase in prices of 6.4% y\/y, which is a\nhigher rate of increase than the 3.1% y\/y registered the previous month. Prices\nin the electricity, gas and other fuels subcategory fell 0.4% y\/y, while the\nannual inflation for rental payments rose to 1.3% y\/y. Transport prices rose\n2.0% m\/m and 2.4% y\/y, which was driven by vehicle purchase prices, which rose\n8.0% y\/y as well as the operation of personal transport equipment, which rose\n3.4% m\/m and 0.85% y\/y. Prices in the miscellaneous category fell 0.1% m\/m but\nrose 6.4% y\/y.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Namibia\u2019s\ninflation rate crept below the South African Reserve Bank\u2019s lower target band\nof 3.0% for 16 consecutive months, before reaching 3.1% in March 2021. The 16\nmonths of low inflation reflects Namibia\u2019s depressed economy, which contracted\nfurther in 2020 due to Covid-19. During this time business activity declined,\nwhile unemployment rose, putting downward pressure on prices. Altogether, these\nfactors created a lower base for prices, making increasing inflation inevitable\nin the recovery of the Namibian economy. Furthermore, rental prices declined\n2.3% y\/y between December 2019 and December 2020. Due to its 23.3% weighting in\nthe overall basket its effect on overall inflation is amplified. Rental prices however\nrose 1.34% between December 2020 and March 2021, which increased overall\ninflation. IJG\u2019s inflation model forecasts an average inflation rate of 3.5%\ny\/y in 2021 and 3.6% in 2022, indicating a gradual increase in the inflation\nrate over the next two years and that inflation will likely remain relatively\nlow over this period. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Namibian annual inflation rate rose to 3.1% y\/y in March, with prices in the overall NCPI basket increasing by 0.5% m\/m. On a year-on-year basis, overall prices in six of the twelve basket categories rose at a quicker rate in March than in February and five of the basket \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economicresearch","category-inflation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ijg.net\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ijg.net\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ijg.net\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ijg.net\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ijg.net\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27700"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ijg.net\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27706,"href":"https:\/\/ijg.net\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27700\/revisions\/27706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ijg.net\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ijg.net\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ijg.net\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}