The decline in the value of the cedi continues to impact negatively on inflation. This rate of inflation for the month of May went up to as much as 2.0 percent. This represents an increase of 0.4 percentage points compared to the 1.6 percent recorded in April. This means that prices of goods and services continue to rise but the rate of increase was higher in May compared to April. For year on year, the rate in May increased to 9.3 percent from 9.1 percent recorded over the same period last year. Head of Economic Statistics at the Statistical Service, Ebo Duncan spoke top JOY BUSINESS. “We know that petrol, electricity and others haven’t been increased and so inflation there is zero. So to get an increase of 2 percent in a month its quiet high especially compared to advanced countries where 2 percent in an entire year is even regarded as high” he said. Mr. Duncan also explains how the exchange rate impacted on rate of inflation for the month of May. “If you look at clothing and foot wear mostly its due to imports because most of these goods are imported and thus the exchange rate has had an upward effect on them. If you take transport for instance you would see that it has been increasing but transport fares, petrol price and others have remained the same. This is because there are other components in the transport sector like tyres, bicycles and others which are also imported and so the exchange rate also has an effect there.” he explained. For the regional level, Central region continued to record the highest rate of 12.4 percent while the Upper East and West regions recorded the lowest with 5.6 percent. Greater Accra recorded 9.7 percent.