In April, headline inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) declined by 1.5 percentage points to 10.2 percent, from 11.7 percent in March. There were significant downward movements in inflation across a range of commodity groups, including food and non-alcoholic beverages (from 21.5 percent to 20.1 percent), housing, electricity and water (7.8 percent to 5.7 percent) and transport (-4.4 percent to -9.2 percent). The only significant increases were for furnishing, household equipment and maintenance and recreation and culture, where inflation rose from 11.6 percent to 13.7 percent and from 1.6 percent to 2.6 percent, respectively. For other categories, inflation either remained unchanged from March or registered only marginal declines or increases.

The trimmed mean measure of core inflation was 9.9 percent in April, down by 0.7 percentage point from 10.6 percent in March. Excluding administered prices, inflation fell by 0.3 percentage point from 15.8 percent to 15.5 percent. While inflation currently remains in double digits and above the Bank of Botswana’s inflation objective range of 3-6 percent, this largely reflects the lingering impact of price increases that occurred in mid-2008. Since then, upward pressure on prices has been generally subdued, and as the effect of these earlier increases dissipates in the coming months, overall inflation can be expected to continue on the current downward trend.