LOW INFLATION IN APRIL

The National Statistics Institute (INE) announced on Thursday that the rate of inflation in Mozambique in April, as measured by the consumer price indices for the three largest cities (Maputo, Nampula and Beira), was just 0.12 per cent,.This is a considerable decline on the previous month, when inflation had been 0.91 per cent. It is also less than half the inflation rate of April 2013, which was 0.25 per cent.During April, there were significant increases in the price of cassava flour (9.3 per cent), cabbage (7.5 per cent), lettuce (4.5 per cent), pineapples (30.6 per cent), and groundnuts (0.9 per cent). There was a surprising reduction in the average price of alcoholic drinks which fell by 1.05 per cent. There were also slight falls in the prices of clothing and footwear, and of furniture. But the prices of most of the items in the basket of goods and services on which the consumer price index is calculated remained unchanged between March and April.The accumulated inflation in the first four months of the years was 2.42 per cent, lower than the figure for January-April 2013, which was 3.08 per cent.The price rises over the entire previous year (1 May 2013 to 30 April 2014) was 2.87 per cent. Again, this was a decline on the previous year (1 May 2012 to 30 April 2013), when inflation had been 4.79 per cent.There were differences between the three cities. The steepest price rise in April, 0.9 per cent, was in Beira. In Maputo, the rise inflation in the month was 0.63 per cent, and in Nampula it was 0.17 per cent.Taking the entire January to April period, Maputo experienced inflation of 4.03 per cent, while in the other two cities it was less than one per cent (Beira 0.97 per cent, and Nampula 0.78 per cent).