Consumer Prices Witness Yearly Drop of 2.45% in May 2016

Deflation persisted in May 2016 as demonstrated by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) that dropped by 2.45% y-o-y by May 2016.

According to the Central Administration of Statistics (CAS), the CPI decreased from 98.02 points in May 2015 to 95.62 points in the same month of 2016.

In terms of the CPI’s components, prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages (20.6% of CPI) declined by 3.22% y-o-y by May 2016.  Transportation (13.1% of CPI) and water, electricity, gas & other fuels (11.9% of CPI) witnessed yearly drops of 6.25% and 14.3%, respectively. This significant decline can be linked to the overall fall in oil prices, where the monthly average crude oil price of the OPEC basket for the period between May 2015 and May 2016 fell by 30.48% to reach 43.21$/barrel. The other sub-indices that shrank were health (7.8% of CPI) and communication (4.6% of CPI), posting a 0.82% and 0.28% y-o-y declines, respectively.

However, the education sub-index, constituting 5.9% of the CPI, increased annually by 1.49% in May 2016. Furthermore, average restaurants & hotels prices (2.6% of CPI) went up by 2.58% y-o-y by May 2016. In addition, the actual rent sub-index for households (old and new rent), with a weight of 3.4% of the CPI, increased by 3.08%.

On a geographical basis, the Bekaa region witnessed the largest month-on-month increase in CPI of 0.72% between April 2016 and May 2016, followed by Nabatieh with 0.59%, the South and North Lebanon with 0.46% and 0.18% respectively; however, both Mount Lebanon and Beirut observed a 0.12% decrease in overall prices.

Monthly Changes in Deflation Levels in Lebanon (Y-o-Y)

Consumer Prices Witness Yearly Drop of 2.45% in May 2016

Source: CAS

 

 

 

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