COVID-19 Pushes Nigeria’s Inflation to 12.34% in April

• COVID-19 Pushes Nigeria’s Inflation to 12.34% in April

The negative impact of COVID-19 has started hurting Nigeria’s macroeconomic fundamentals as consumer prices rose to a 24-month high in April.

Consumer Price Index, which measures inflation rate, rose from 12.26 percent year-on-year in the month of March to 12.34 percent in April during the COVID-19 lockdown, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) report released on Thursday.

On a monthly basis, headline inflation rose by 1.02 percent, an increase of 0.18 percent when compared with the 0.84 percent filed in the month of March.

Accordingly, the gauge of food prices, food index, rose from 14.98 percent year-on-year in March to 15.03 percent in April.

This was attributed to the surge in prices of Potatoes, Yam and other tubers, Bread and cereals, Fish, Oils and fats, Meat, Fruits and Vegetables.

On a monthly basis, prices of food increased by 1.18 percent in April, higher than the 0.94 percent recorded in the previous month.

This is one of the projected negative effects of COVID-19 on Nigeria and the rest of the world. The pandemic has disrupted global supply chain and brought global economy to a stop during the month under review.

While several economies including Nigeria are yet to fully reopen for business activities, experts warned that the negative effect of the pandemic could slow down global growth substantially this year.

The International Monetary Fund has said Sub-Saharan Africa could experience as much as 1.6 percent economic contraction this year while Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, was projected to decline by 3.4 percent due to its exposure to the global oil market.

Also, experts at Investors King expect consumer spending, jobs and earnings to remain down for the rest of the year. However, they predicted that the economy would start improving with an increase in spending in the first half of 2021.