By Obafemi Oredein;
Special to Dow Jones Newswires
IBADAN, Nigeria–Nigeria’s annual inflation rate increased to 25.8% in August from 24.1% a month earlier, the country’s National Bureau of Statistics said Friday.
This is the eighth-consecutive month that the West African country’s inflation rate has risen, and the highest result since inflation slowed to 21.3% in December, it said.
Food inflation increased to 29.3% in August from 27% in the previous month, it said.
Rising prices across the board for food and edible oils and eggs are responsible for increasing food inflation, however, security in food-producing areas, rising cost of energy for transportation, and inadequacies in public infrastructure also contributed to rising food and core inflation, the Central Bank of Nigeria said in a statement.
The price of diesel has more than doubled, at 850 Nigerian naira a liter ($1.12) compared with NGN400 a liter a year ago.
Petrol is around three times more expensive since the end of May when the government removed a subsidy on petroleum products. Petrol is between NGN580 a liter to NGN630 a liter, up from NGN195 before the removal of the subsidy.
The central bank’s decision to float the national currency against the U.S. dollar has also resulted in a depreciation of the naira, further pushing up prices of other goods as well.
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