Tunisia- Inflation jumps to 6.3% in April 2020

The inflation rate bordered up to 6.3% in April in opposition to 6.2% in March and 5.8% in February 2020, the National Institute of Statistics (INS) published on Wednesday on its website.

This rise is largely due to the expedition of the speed of food price increases to 6.2%, due to the growth in prices of fruit (by 13.6%), fish (11.1%), and vegetables (9.9%), in contradiction to a decline in olive oil prices (13.6%).

Furthermore, the INS announced a 7.6% year-on-year increase in the prices of produced products, in view of a 7.7% increase in the prices of household cleaning products and a 10.1% surge in the prices of hygiene and personal care products.

The core inflation (excluding food and energy) prevailed stable at 7%, against 6.9% in February and 6.8% in January 2020. Prices of free (non-administered) products were up by 6.5%, against 5.5% for administered prices.

Free food prices registered an increase of 7.1%, opposed to 1.8% for administered food. In April, consumer prices were up 0.9% on a monthly basis

Consumer prices increased by 0.9% in April 2020 compared to 0.8% in March 2020. This rise was principally due to a 6.2% jump in prices of clothing items as a consequence of the termination of winter sales, and a 0.9% rise in food prices due to higher prices of pulses (5%), fresh fish (3.5%), fruit (2.4%) and red meat (1.7%).

In addition, the INS reported an increase in the prices of manufactured products of 1.4%, over one month, due to the rise in the prices of construction materials by 1.2% and the prices of household cleaning products by 0.5%.