In April 2017, headline inflation fell to 3.4 percent from 3.5 percent in March. According to the latest data from Statistics Botswana, inflation fell for some commodity groups, including: food and non-alcoholic beverages (from 4.4 to 3.8 percent); alcoholic beverages and tobacco (from 4.9 to 4.8 percent); clothing and footwear (from 3.8 to 3.4 percent); health (from 3.4 to 3.3 percent); transport (from 1.6 to 1.5 percent); education (from 4.2 to 4.1 percent); restaurants and hotels (from 3.7 to 3.6 percent); and miscellaneous goods and services (from 8.4 to 1.9 percent – largely because of a fall in the rate of price increase for insurance). However, this was partly offset by rising inflation for: housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels (from 2.8 to 6.7 percent – reflecting an increase in the price of water, electricity, gas and other fuels) and recreation and culture (from 1.7 to 2.4 percent). Inflation was unchanged for: furnishing, household equipment and routine maintenance (3.6 percent) and communication (0.1 percent).

The trimmed mean measure of core inflation was unchanged at 3.1 percent, while inflation excluding administered prices fell from 3.9 to 3.3 percent.