Botswana\'s inflation stands at 4.1% in December

Botswana's national year on year inflation for December 2013 stood at 4.1 percent, remaining stable within the central bank's 3-6 percent objective range. Statistics Botswana(SB), the country's national data authority on Wednesday said the annual inflation rate was 4.1 percent in December 2013, same as in the previous month of November. SB further said the annual inflation in December was lower than the 7.4 percent recorded during the same month in 2012. The authority attributed the downward movement of annual inflation rate between December 2012 and December 2013 to the stable prices of commodities especially the main components of transport, alcoholic, beverages, tobacco and narcotics and food and non-alcoholic beverages, which declined by 9.0, 5.4 and 3.4 percentage points respectively. "Group indices were stable between November and December, recording changes of less than 1.0 percent except for restaurants and hotels group index which increased by 1.2 percent," said SB in a statement. According to SB, all-tradable index moved from 179.1 in November to 179.5 in December, recording an increase of 0.2 percent. The authority says the imported tradable index, between November and December, advanced from 171.9 to 172.4, a rise of 0.3 percent while in the same period, the non-tradable index shifted from 152.8 to 153.3, an increase of 0.3 percent. Botswana's inflation eased from 5 percent in September 2013 to 4.8 percent in October, and has been within the bank's objective range of 3 – 6 percent, since then. Meanwhile Bank of Botswana's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) remains optimistic that the medium-term outlook for inflation is positive, with inflation forecast to remain within the 3-6 percent objective range.