Annual consumer price inflation (CPI) reached 7.8% in July 2022, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) said on Wednesday.

This was a 1.5% increase from the 7.4% recorded in June 2022.

The agency said the main contributors to the 7.8% annual inflation rate were food and non-alcoholic beverages; housing and utilities; transport; and miscellaneous goods and services.

“Food and non-alcoholic beverages increased by 9.7% year-on-year, and contributed 1.7 percentage points to the total CPI annual rate of 7.8%.

“Housing and utilities increased by 4.0% year-on-year, and contributed 1.0 percentage point. Transport increased by 25.0% year-on-year, and contributed 3.4 percentage points. Miscellaneous goods and services increased by 3.6% year-on-year, and contributed 0.5 of a percentage point,” said Stats SA.

In July, the annual inflation rate for goods was 11.5%, up from 11.0% in June; and for services, it was 4.2%, up from 3.9% in June.

On the collection of price data from retail stores, Stats SA obtains prices from retailers through fieldwork collection and online collection.

“The paper forms used by fieldworkers are being replaced by tablets, which provide a custom application that includes quality control and management modules. The new collection method for fieldwork will be implemented from July 2022 to March 2023 and is expected to improve the quality and speed of data collection and processing,” it said.

Source: South African Government News Agency