The inflation rate in Jamaica has been running under 4 percent per annum since September last year, but the point to point measurement, the focus of the country’s central bank, undercounts what is taking place with old data clouding the true extent of current inflation and risking the central bank missing the targeted rate.
Point to point inflation in January this year was a high 7.4 percent, by April it plunged to 5.3 percent, a huge 28 percentage point drop in a short time frame as old data drops out and is replaced by new, lower ones. March’s point to point inflation came in at 5.6 percent still some distance lower than January.
In the past twelve months, inflation has been lower than in the prior year, with only three months when inflation was meaningfully above the same period in 2022-2023. Of the period in the last twelve months when the rates were higher, there were two months when it was marginally higher. In one month that it was worse inflation was negative in both cases and another this year’s inflation was 0.5 percent.
Bank of Jamaica’s CD rates dropped below 9 percent, this past week and investors can now expect a cut in the overnight rate soon
Plunge in Jamaica’s inflation, BOJ ON rate next
August 18, 2024 by
