Stats SA reported 7.8% CPI in July 2022

Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) said on Wednesday that the annual rate of consumer price inflation (CPI) had reached 7.8% in July 2022.

This represents a rise of 1.5% from the 7.4% seen in June 2022.

According to the agency, transportation, housing and utilities, miscellaneous products and services, food and non-alcoholic drinks, and housing and utilities were the primary causes of the 7.8% annual inflation rate.

“Food and non-alcoholic drinks rose by 9.7% annually, adding 1.7 percentage points to the 7.8% annual CPI rate for the whole country.

“Housing and utilities climbed by 4.0% year over year and were a 1.0 percentage point contributor.

The transportation sector grew by 25.0% year over year and made 3.4 percentage points.

According to Stats SA, other products and services climbed by 3.6% year over year and contributed 0.5 of a percentage point.

The annual inflation rate for goods increased to 11.5% in July from June’s 11.0% while the annual inflation rate for services increased to 4.2% from June’s 3.9%.

Regarding the gathering of pricing information from retail establishments, Stats SA gathers information online and via fieldwork.

“Tablets are taking the place of the paper forms used by fieldworkers because they provide a customised application with quality control and management components.

It was said that the new fieldwork data gathering strategy will be used from July 2022 to March 2023 and that it would “increase the quality and speed of data collection and processing.