In August, annual inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) Increased marginally by 0.1 percentage points to 6.1 percent, from 6.0 percent in July, taking the headline measure of inflation slightly outside the Bank of Botswana’s 3 – 6 percent objective. This increase was attributed to increases in the clothing and footwear (9.2 percent to 9.3 percent), the restaurant and hotels (21.3 percent to 21.7 percent) and transport (-19.3 percent to -17.4 percent) categories. This was, however, countered by the fact that most categories registered declines in inflation: the annual rate of price increase fell significantly for food and non-alcoholic beverages from 14.7 percent to 13.6 percent; for alcoholic beverages and tobacco (from 39.5 percent to 38.5 percent) and for furnishing, household equipment and routine maintenance (from 14.2 percent to 13.2 percent). However, in other categories, inflation either remained unchanged or declined by less than 0.5 percentage points.
The trimmed mean measure of core inflation was 6.9 percent in August, a fall of 0.5 percentage points from 7.4 percent in July. Excluding administered prices, inflation decreased by 0.8 percentage points from 14.2 percent to 13.4 percent.