ANNUAL PRICE INFLATION RATE RISES TO 4.8%
For the second quarter of 2022, the Statistical Office has measured the Retail Price Index (RPI) at 112.8. This is an increase of 4.8% from a year ago, which is the highest annual inflation rate since 2017, which was just after the vote was held in the UK to leave the European Union.
Annual inflation rate, Q2 2015 to Q2 2022
The biggest contributing factor to this increase is the higher price of imported petrol and diesel used in road vehicles. At the time when prices were measured, petrol had risen to £1.98 a litre and diesel had risen to £2.22 a litre, which were increases of 44.5% and 53.1% respectively, compared to the previous quarter. Together, based on the weight of these two items in the RPI, these two items increased the average household shopping basket by 2.8% compared to the previous year.
High inflation rates in both the UK and South Africa, where almost all imported goods are purchased, are a further contributing factor to higher levels of inflation on St Helena. Measured using their respective Consumer Price Indices in May 2022, annual inflation in the United Kingdom was 9.1% and in South Africa it was 6.5%. This is the highest inflation rate in the UK since 1982, and the highest rate in South Africa since 2017.
The full Statistical Bulletin and a detailed data file can be found on the St Helena Government website here: https://www.sainthelena.gov.sh/st-helena/statistics/the-economy.
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SHG
20 July 2022
