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BL Premium reports that annual consumer price inflation (CPI) quickened to 5.2% in May 2021, up from 4.4% in April, Stats SA advised on Wednesday.
That was the highest level since November 2018. The main contributors to the May 2021 CPI were food and nonalcoholic beverages, housing and utilities, transport and miscellaneous goods and services. The acceleration in price growth was partly due to a so-called “base effect,” whereby prices correct back towards more usual levels after a prior period of decline. Petrol prices were 41.8% higher in May 2021 compared with the same month in 2020, while diesel was 27% more expensive. Annual food and nonalcoholic beverages inflation quickened to a 46-month high of 6.7% in May, up from 6.3% in April. The May reading was the highest since July 2017 and was driven by stubbornly high meat inflation and rising prices for fish, cooking oil as well as sugar, sweets and deserts. RMB economist Siobhan Redford predicted that the 5.2% figure was likely to be “the peak for the current inflation cycle as the base effects causing this spike start normalising”.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Garth Theunissen at BusinessLive (paywall access only)
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