By:Justicia Shipena
Namibia Price Consumer Index (NCPI) bulletin for December 2022 shows that prices for the operation of personal transport equipment increased by 22.6%.
Last week, the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA)released its NCPI bulletin for December last year.
The increase resulted mainly from price increases recorded in lubrication which jumped from 3.0% to 11.2%.
“Prices for the operation of personal transport equipment increased by 22.6% in December 2022 compared to 19.7% recorded in December 2021,” theNSA reported.
Driving lessons, licenses and tests also played a role in the increase of personal transport equipment, which increased from 5.8% to 11.1%.
In the period under review, prices for public transportation services recorded a slow increase of 1.4% compared to 8.9% registered during the same period of 2021. This increase emanated from increases registered in the price levels of air transportation from -10.7% to 17.1% and furniture removal and transport of goods which increased from 3.7% to 26.3%.
In addition, the purchase of vehicles registered a slow increase of 4.5% during December 2022 compared to 6.0% recorded during December 2021.
“During the period under review, prices for petrol or diesel increased slightly to an inflation rate of 36.2% compared to an inflation rate of 36.1% recorded during December 2021,”the bulletin stated.
The annual inflation rate for the alcoholic beverages and tobacco category which accounts for 12.6% of the consumer basket rose by 4.2%.”The increase in this group resulted mainly from an increase registered in the price level of alcoholic beverages sub category which increased by 4.5% compared to 3.2% recorded in December 2021.”
Monthly, the alcoholic beverages and tobacco group recorded a deflation rate of 0.1% during the month under review.
“Prices for alcoholic beverages rose by 4.5% in December 2022, compared to an inflation rate of 3.2% recorded in December 2021.”
It further stated that the increase in the price levels of this sub-component resulted mainly from subcategories of white spirits which increased from 15.8% to 20.3% and liqueurs from – 4.6% to -1.4%.
At the same time, tobacco, prices for this class recorded a slow growth of 2.9% during the same period.
“The slowdown registered in the inflation rate for this category was reflected in the subcategory of pipe tobacco which recorded a deflation of 3.3% in comparison to 10.1% recorded in December 2021,”the NSA reported.
Furthermore, in the same month, the annual inflation rate for goods increased by 9.6% while that of services rose by 3.1%.
“The monthly inflation rate for goods registered a slow increase of 0.4% in December 2022 compared to 0.9% registered during the previous month.”
NSA said the monthly inflation rate for services stagnated at 0.0% during December 2022.