Tanzania's headline annual inflation accelerated to 4.2% in February from 4.0% in January, snapping a five-month falling streak, data from the country’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed. However, it remained below the central bank’s 5% target. The monthly inflation quickened to 1.6% from 1.0% in January.
Prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages, which have a 47.8% weight in the CPI basket used to measure inflation, increased 4.9% y/y last month, at the same pace as in January. The y/y growth in the costs for housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels (9.2% weight) accelerated to 6.6% from 4.9%, while transport prices (9.5% weight) fell 1.4% y/y, after staying flat in January.
The annual core inflation rate, which excludes the most volatile components food and energy, eased to 2.7% last month from 2.8% in January.
Tanzania’s average annual headline inflation fell to 6.1% last year from 7.9% in 2013, with food inflation down to 7.7% from 8.6%, non-food inflation down to 4.9% from 7.5%, and core inflation down to 3.7% from 6.2%.
| y/y inflation rate | Feb-15 | Jan-15 | Feb-14 | weight |
| Headline inflation | 4.2% | 4.0% | 6.0% | 100.0 |
| Food inflation (combining food consumed at home and food consumed in restaurants) | 5.1% | 5.0% | 6.9% | 51.0 |
| Non food inflation | 3.0% | 2.7% | 6.3% | 49.0 |
| Energy inflation (combining electricity and other fuels for use at home with petrol and diesel) | 4.4% | 2.4% | 16.1% | 5.7 |
| Core inflation (all items less food and energy) | 2.7% | 2.8% | 4.8% | 43.3 |
| Source: National Bureau of Statistics |
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