The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics is pleased to release the Consumer Price Indices (CPI) and inflation rates for the month of February 2008, for your information and use. This data is generated through monthly data collection from retail outlets in 13 urban centres in Kenya . The data is perceived to be representative of the spending behaviour of Kenyan urban households. The price data is collected in the second and third week of the month of review in the selected retail outlets. This is in order to maintain consistency in price variations .
Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased by 2.1 per cent from 260.94 points in January 2008 to 266.37 points in February 2008. Month-on-month overall inflation rate accelerated slightly from 18.2 per cent in January 2008 to 19.1 per cent in February 2008. On the other hand, month-on-month underlying inflation rate which excludes food items from the CPI basket accelerated from 7.6 per cent in January 2008 to 9.3 per cent in February 2008.
Table 1 shows Weights and the percentage changes in the indices of broad categories of items in the month of February 2008 compared to January 2008 (previous month) and the month of February 2008 compared to February 2007 (previous year).
Table 1: One Month
and twelve months Change in Price Indices
|
Broad Item Group |
%
Weights |
% Change on Previous month (
Feb 08/Jan 08
) |
% Change on Previous year (
Feb 08/Feb 07) |
Food & Non-alcoholic drink |
50.50 |
2.4
|
24.9 |
Alcohol & Tobacco |
2.97 |
1.2 |
14.0 |
Clothing & Footwear |
9.00 |
0.9
|
4.4 |
Housing Costs |
11.74 |
0.5 |
5.9 |
Fuel & Power |
4.18 |
2.4 |
14.1 |
Household Goods & Services |
5.82 |
1.7 |
6.9 |
Medical Goods and Services |
1.59 |
4.1 |
7.7 |
Transport & Communication |
5.75 |
0.6 |
18.5 |
Recreation & Education |
6.02 |
4.0 |
6.7 |
Personal Goods |
2.45 |
0.9 |
5.0 |
Average all Groups |
100.00 |
2.1 |
19.1 |
Food and non-alcoholic drinks’ index increased by 2.4 per cent in February 2008 compared to January 2008 due to increases in the price of cooking fat, salad oil and carrots. On average, the price of a kilogram of cooking fat increased by 16.6 percent from Ksh 83.08 in January to Ksh96.86 in February 2008. A Litre of salad oil retailed at an average price of Ksh. 121.62 in February 2008 up from Ksh. 108.65 in January representing a rise of 11.94 percent
.
Medical goods and services’ index increased by 4.1 percent in February 2008 compared to January due to increases in the prices of pain killers and consultancy services. The average price of pain killers increased by 6.5 percent from Ksh 22.90 in January 2008 to Ksh 24.39 in February 2008. Consultancy services prices increased by 3.3 percent from an average of Ksh. 309.30 in January to Ksh 319.47 February.