Tanzania's year-on-year inflation rate slowed for the third straight
month, to 19 percent in March from 19.4 percent a month earlier due to a fall
in food and fuel costs, the state-run statistics body said on Monday.
The modest fall is expected to leave east Africa's second largest
economy struggling to meet its target of single digit inflation by June.
Poor rains across much of east Africa for most of last year hit food
security and electricity output, triggering spikes in the level of inflation
and threatening economic growth.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said food prices edged down to
25.7 percent year-on-year in March from 26.7 a month ago, helping push
inflation lower.
Food and alcoholic beverages account for almost half the total
weighting in the consumer price index in Tanzania.
"Falling food and energy costs are the main reasons for the
decline of the inflation rate in the year to March 2012," Ephraim
Kwesigabo, the director of population census and social statistics at NBS, told
Reuters.
The World Bank has backed the government's forecast that inflation
could be lowered to single digits by mid-2012, while the International Monetary
Fund has said it expects this to happen by the end of the year.
Electricity and gas costs stood at 17.4 percent year-on-year in March
2012 versus 19.5 percent a month earlier.
Source: Reuters,af.reuters.com, reported by Fumbuka Ng'wanakilala in Dar es Salaam
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