Ugandan Inflation Rate Climbs to 18-Year High on Food, Fuel
October 31, 2011, 6:18 AM EDTBy Fred Ojambo
(Updates with comments from statistics agency starting in second paragraph.)
Oct. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Uganda’s inflation rate jumped to 30.5 percent in October from a year earlier, the highest level since January 1993, as food costs and fuel prices increased, the Uganda Bureau of Statistics said.
Inflation in East Africa’s third-biggest economy accelerated from 28.3 percent in September, the agency said in a statement handed to reporters today in Kampala, the capital. Prices rose 1.3 percent in the month, it said. Costs of food, which accounts for 27 percent of the inflation basket, climbed 45.8 percent compared with a year earlier, while gasoline and diesel prices also increased, the agency said.
“Rising prices for petrol and diesel continued pushing up transport fares in some centers,” it said.
Uganda’s central bank boosted its benchmark interest rate by 4 percentage points to 20 percent on Oct. 4 to curb inflation and plans to keep raising it until inflation starts to slow, according to the central bank. The Ugandan shilling has weakened 11 percent against the dollar this year, adding to import costs. The Bank of Uganda will probably increase the benchmark rate by 2 percentage points tomorrow, according to Standard Chartered Plc
Uganda ranks behind Ethiopia as Africa’s largest exporter of coffee, according to the London-based International Coffee Organization.
--Editors: Gordon Bell, Vernon Wessels
To contact the reporter on this story: Fred Ojambo in Kampala at fojambo@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Richardson at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net
