NAIROBI: Kenya's inflation crept up to 7.67 percent in the year to July from 7.39 percent in the previous month, the statistics office said on Thursday.
The rate was slightly above the central bank's preferred range of 2.5-7.5 percent and also just a touch higher than the consensus forecast of 7.63 percent.
Analysts said the rate was likely to come down to about 6.6 percent next month on the back of base effects because there had been a jump in prices of most commodities in the same period last year caused by a new sales tax law.
"However this is likely to be only temporary, with inflation rising thereafter, and a good chance that it breaches 8 percent by December 2014," said Razia Khan, head of research for Africa at Standard Chartered.
She predicted policymakers would raise the benchmark lending rate by 50 basis points at their December meeting to keep a lid on the growing inflationary pressures.
The statistics office blamed the inflation uptick last month on a 0.50 percent increase in the food and non-alcoholic drinks index, which accounts for just over a third of the basket of goods used to measure inflation.
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