Nigeria’s inflation rate hits 11.40% in May- NBS 

 The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), says the consumer price index (CPI) which measured inflation increased to 11.40 per cent (year-on-year) in May from 11.37 per cent recorded in April.

The NBS made this known in its “CPI and Inflation Report’’ for May released in Abuja on Monday on its website. The bureau said the figure was 0.03 per cent points higher than the 11.37 recorded in April in the period under review. It said the increases were recorded in all classification of individual consumption by purpose (COICOP) divisions that yielded the headline index.

On a month-on-month basis, it said the headline index increased to 1.11 per cent in the period under review by 0.17 per cent points from 0.94 per cent recorded in April. It said the percentage change in the average composite CPI for the 12 months period ended May over the average of CPI for the previous 12 months period.

 It, however, measured the CPI at 11.30 per cent in the period under review, indicating a 0.01 per cent decline from 11.31 per cent recorded in April. According to the NBS, the CPI measures the average change over time in prices of goods and services consumed by people for day-to-day living.

It said the construction of the CPI combines economic theory, sampling and other statistical techniques, using data from other surveys to produce a weighted measure of average price changes in the Nigerian economy. It added that the production of the CPI requires skills of economists, statisticians, computer scientists and data collectors, among others