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 2.7 per cent from 274.49 points in March 2008 to 281.88 points in April 2008.  Month-on-month overall inflation rate increased from 21.8 per cent in March 2008 to 26.6 per cent in April 2008.  On the other hand, month-on-month underlying inflation rate which excludes food items from the CPI basket also decreased from 9.8 per cent in March 2008 to 9.6 per cent in April 2008.

Table 1 shows Weights and the percentage changes in the indices of broad categories of items in the month of April 2008 compared to March 2008 (previous month) and the month of April 2008 compared to April 2007 (previous year).

Table 1: One Month and twelve months Change in Price Indices
Broad Item Group	% Weights	% Change on Previous month (Apr 08/Mar 08 )	% Change on Previous year ( Apr 08/Apr 07)
Food & Non-alcoholic drink	50.50	4.0	36.8
Alcohol & Tobacco	2.97	-0.6	14.0
Clothing & Footwear	9.00	-0.2	4.3
Housing Costs	11.74	0.2	5.7
Fuel & Power	4.18	0.8	15.4
Household Goods & Services	5.82	-0.1	7.5
Medical Goods and Services	1.59	0.0	7.9
Transport & Communication	5.75	0.4	19.5
Recreation & Education	6.02	-1.0	5.5
Personal Goods	2.45	0.5	6.2
Average all Groups	100.00	2.7	26.6

Food and non-alcoholic drinks’ index increased by 4.0 per cent from 363.05 in March 2008 to 377.59 in April 2008 mainly due to increases in the price of tomatoes, carrots, maize flour and English potatoes among other food items. On average, the price of a kilogram of tomatoes increased by 44.6 per cent from KSh 45.75 in February to KSh 66.15 in April 2008. A kilogram of carrots retailed at an average price of KSh. 55.61 in April 2008 up from KSh. 39.62 in March representing a rise of 40.4 per cent. Likewise, the prices of maize flour and English potatoes increased by 13.3 and 8.0 per cent, respectively.