As Christians across the country prepares for the Christmas celebrations, the headline inflation has continued to rise as it spiked further in November, settling at 34.60 per cent, relative to the October headline inflation rate of 33.88 per cent.

The rise in headline inflation was occasioned by unrelenting higher prices of food items, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS ) disclosed on Monday. The latest figure showed an increase of 0.72 per cent points compared to the October 2024 rate.

The food component dragged inflation to a higher level of 39.93 per cent on a year-on-year basis, indicating 7.08 per cent points higher than the rate recorded in November 2023 (32.84%).

The rise in food inflation on a year-on- year basis was caused by increases in prices of the following itemsyam, water yam, coco yam, etc (potatoes, yam & other tubers Class), guinea corn, maize grains, rice, etc (bread and cereal class), beer, pinto (tobacco class), and palm oil, vegetable oil, etc (oil and fats class).

On a month-on-month basis, the food inflation rate in November 2024 was 2.98 per cent which shows 0.05 per cent points increase compared to the rate recorded in October 2024 (2.94%).

The rise is attributed to the rate of increase in the average prices of mudfish, catfish dried, dried fish sadine, etc (fish class), rice, yam flour, millet whole grain, corn flour, etc (bread and cereal class), agric egg, powdered milk, fresh milk, etc (milk, cheese and eggs class) and dried beef, goat meat, frozen chicken, etc (meat Class).

The average annual rate of food inflation for the twelve months ending November 2024 over the previous twelve-month average was 38.67 per cent, which was 11.58 per cent points higher compared with the average annual rate of change recorded in November 2023 (27.09%).