Regional economic news update – Inflation creeping towards double digits

INFLATION MOVING TOWARDS DOUBLE DIGIT TERRITORY

The recent slide of the Uganda Shilling and subsequent rise in fuel prices and prices of imported goods in general, combined with lesser supplies of food to the main consumer markets due to drought effects, has driven inflation to a decade long high, as across the region the ‘magic threshold’ of a double digit figure is coming ever nearer. Regional Central Banks are reportedly in constant contact with each other to devise ways and means to stabilise the respective currencies and introduce measures to combat inflation trends but to little avail so far. A source from Bank of Uganda pointed to the UK however, saying they are expecting a 5 percent inflation trend this year and claiming that ‘7 or 8 percent is not unusual in our region’ while claiming that ‘we shall not reach the 10 percent’.

Reassuring or not, the next round of data releases of inflationary figures in the region will tell.