Kgori Capital forecasts inflation rise in October
Despite two months of slowing down after a stretch of rising up and eventually being suspended above the central bank’s medium term target, the annual inflation is expected to rise again this month.
Kgori Capital Portfolio Manager, Kwabena Antwi has indicated that inflation is expected to rise again after dropping to 8.4 percent in September, following another drop to 8.8 percent in August from July’s 8.9 percent.
“We expect inflation to rise again in October 2021, due to upward pump price adjustments implemented on 8 October 2021, before continuing to decelerate on account of base effects,” said Antwi.
Statistics Botswana (SB) this week said the main contributors to the annual inflation came from the transport, housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels, food and non-alcoholic beverages as well as miscellaneous goods and services groups.
Sharing the sentiments, Antwi said the September decline in inflation was due to slowing in transport inflation which reduced from 20.6 percent in August to 17.5 percent in September.
The country data authority also further highlighted that the group indices were generally moving at a stable pace between August and September 2021, recording changes of less than 1.0 percent, except the education group index which recorded 1.0 percent. Meanwhile, inflation rates for regions between August 2021 and September 2021 indicated that the rural villages inflation rate stood at 8.0 percent in September, a decrease of 0.8 of a percentage point on the August rate of 8.8 percent.
And the cities and towns inflation rate declined by 0.3 of a percentage point, from 8.7 percent in August to 8.4 percent In September, while the urban villages’ inflation rate stood at 8.6 percent in September, a drop of 0.3 of a percentage point on the August rate of 8.9 percent.
Inflation is anticipated to remain above the central bank’s midterm target of three to six percent until the second quarter of 2022.