The Government Statistician, Prof. Samuel Kobina Annim, has advised policy makers to take a critical look at factors contributing to the increasing food inflation.

According to him, food inflation has consistently witness an increase of more than 20 percentage points compared to non-food inflation.

Speaking to Journalists after announcing the Inflation for June 2023 which increased marginally to 42.5% compared to 42.2% in May 2023, Prof. Annim announced that prices of common staple food such as vegetables and fish continue to record increases over the period.

 “At the minimum, we see a widening of the gap between food and non-food inflation. We need to focus on why we see food inflation going up. We have seen about a 20 percentage point change between food inflation and non-food inflation”, he said.

He announced that food inflation was at 54.2% higher than the national average, with imported products increasing by 43.8%, while locally produced items saw a rate 36.2%.

The month-on-month inflation between May 2023 and June 2023 was however 3.2%

Fish and other seafood (60.1%); Milk, other dairy products and eggs (56.5%) and oil and fats (55.1%) recorded very high inflation in June 2023.

According to the data, five divisions recorded an inflation rate higher than the national average.

They were Personal care, social protection and miscellaneous goods and service (55.1%); Furnishings, household equipment and routine household equipment (54.2%); Food and non-alcoholic beverages (54.2%); Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels (49.2%) and Alcoholic beverages, tobacco and narcotics (43.9%).

Western North region records highest inflation

For the regions, Western North region recorded the highest inflation of 61.8%.

Interestingly, the Greater Accra region registered the lowest inflation of 30.5%.

For food inflation, the North East region recorded the highest of 79.0%. It again registered the highest inflation of 46.7% for non-food inflation.