Inflation up to 3.5 per cent in February on increased food and transport costs
Notably, core inflation, which measures the cost of living excluding volatile components like food and energy prices from the overall Consumer Price Index, stood at 2.0 per cent.
Increased prices of some food commodities and cost of transport in February pushed up the country's inflation, the measure of the general cost of living, to 3.5 per cent.
This is an increase from the 3.3 per cent recorded last month and marks the fourth consecutive month of rising inflation since October last year.
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Data by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) shows prices of sugar, cooking oil and tomatoes rose by 3.2, 1.6 and 1.3 per cent, respectively between January 2025 and February 2025.
However, prices of wheat flour and potatoes dropped by 2.4 per cent and 1.8 per cent, respectively.
In general, the Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages Index increased by 0.6 per cent between January 2025 and February 2025.
On the other hand, the Transport Index rose by 0.1 per cent in the period under review, mainly due to an increase in prices for local flights by 4.8 per cent. This despite prices of petrol and diesel remaining the same in the review period.
Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels Index increased by 0.1 percent. The increase is attributable to an increase in the price of gas/LPG by 0.6 per cent.
"Prices of 50kWh electricity and 200 kWh electricity, however, declined by 1.4 per cent and 1.2 per cent, respectively in the same period," KNBS said.
Notably, core inflation, which measures the cost of living excluding volatile components like food and energy prices from the overall Consumer Price Index (CPI), stood at 2.0 per cent, unchanged from the previous month.
On the other hand, non-core inflation, which represents the price movements of those excluded volatile items, essentially showing the impact of fluctuating food and energy costs on inflation, rose from 7.1 per cent in January to 8.2 in the month under review.
KNBS began publishing core inflation data in January, seeking to help monetary authorities better predict the impact of their interest rate decisions on the economy.
The statistics bureau has previously been focusing on headline inflation in its monthly releases, including volatile components such as food and fuel, forcing the Central Bank of Kenya to disaggregate the data and work out the non-food and non-fuel inflation.
It argues that the core inflation measure is a more reliable measure of inflation commonly used by central banks to inform monetary policy decisions and communication with the public.
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