Yaoundé witnesses hike in food prices by 2.8 pct ⁰

Consumer Price Index (CPI) in Cameroon’s capital, Yandé recovered by 0.8 percent in February 2019 after a 0.5 decline the previous month, the National Statistics Institute (INS) revealed.

Such a bounce back, INS mentions, was motivated by an increase in the prices of food by 2.8 percent after a 1.7 percent drop in January 2019; Furnishings, household equipment and routine maintenance of the house (+0.4 percent after a steady trend in Jan); apparel and footwear (+0.2 percent after -0.2 percent). Alternatively, the prices of housing, water, gas, electricity and other fuels fell over the period (-0.2 percent after +0.3 percent in the previous month).

Monthly surge in food prices in Yaoundé is largely due to the increase in prices of fruit (+14.7 percent after -2.2 percent), vegetables (+6.1 percent after -1.8 percent), oils and fats (+2.9 percent after +0.8 percent), fish and seafood (+1.2 percent after -0.1 percent), and to a lesser extent meat (+0.3 percent after +0.3 percent).

Fruit prices are rising, driven in particular by higher prices of watermelons, pineapples, avocado and lemon. Higher vegetable prices come from the increase in prices of fresh tomatoes, fresh okra, okok leaves, etc.

Increase in the price of fish and seafood is mainly due to the increase in the prices of frozen sea bass (+0.3 percent), fresh sea bass (+1.3 percent), fresh carp (+2.5 percent), frozen captain (+5.0 percent) and frozen African sea catfish (+11.6 percent). “Also, prices of bread increased by 0.1 percent and those of imported popular rice by 1 percent,” INS says, as reported by Business in Cameroon.

Source: Devdiscourse