Kenya National Bureau of Statistics hereby presents the geometric Consumer Price Indices (CPI) and inflation rates pertaining to the month of November 2009 with base period as October 2005. The numbers have been generated through data collected every second and third weeks of the month of review from selected retail outlets in 13 urban centers. 

As indicated in Table 2, the CPI computed using the new geometric mean approach increased by 0.19 percent from 141.21 points in October 2009 to 141.50 points in November 2009. Month-on-month overall inflation rate stood at 5.0 percent in November 2009 compared to 6.6 percent in October 2009 as shown in Table1 below.

Table 1: One Month and Twelve Months Changes in the Price Indices

Food and non alcoholic drinks’ index which accounts for 50.5 percent of all weight went up only slightly from 158.15 points in October to 158.16 points in November 2009. This was attributed to an almost equal impact of rises and falls in the food prices. English potatoes, milk and beans were among the food items whose prices went up. On average, the price of a kilogram of English potatoes was retailing at KSh. 38.57 in November 2009 compared to KSh. 34.94 in October 2009, an increase of 10.41 percent. Similarly, the average prices of Milk and beans went up by 1.54 and 2.79 percent, respectively. On the other hand, there were notable falls in the prices of sifted maize flour, tomatoes, onions and loose maize grain by 5.64, 8.15, 12.72 and 4.02 percent, respectively.

During the same review period, the fuel and power index increased by 1.7 percent from 135.55 points in October 2009 to 137.89 points in November 2009. This was mainly due to increase in the cost of electricity, paraffin and charcoal by 12.62, 2.09 and 1.57 percent, respectively.

Table 2: Overall Geometric CPI and Inflation

Source: Kenya National Bureau of Statistics