The Urban CPI is considered as the headline index for monetary policy purposes. In addition, select detailed item indices are published for items judged to be important or experiencing extreme price movement.

Figures released today show that the Urban CPI increased by 15.6 percent on annual basis (July 2022 and July 2021) and increased by 1.7 percent on monthly basis (July 2022 to June 2022). The annual average inflation rate between July 2022 and July 2021 was 5.9 percent.

Food and non-alcoholic beverages increased by 28.6 percent, ‘Housing water, electricity, gas and other fuels’ increased by 7.5 percent, Transport increased by 12.4 percent while Restaurants and Hotels increased by 17.2 percent.

The CPI for July 2022 increased by 1.7 percent compared to June 2022. Food and nonalcoholic beverages increased by 2.9 percent.

Meanwhile, Rural CPI increased by 22.5 percent on annual basis from and increased by 3.5 percent on monthly basis from 17.9 % of the previous month.

NISR has also revealed that the overall Rwanda CPI increased by 19.6 percent on annual basis and increased by 2.7 percent on monthly basis.

Apart from Rwanda, prices continue to soar on the international market, mainly due to the war between Russia and Ukraine and hiked transport cost.

The Ministry of Infrastructure recently announced revised fuel prices where a liter of diesel is set at Rwf1607 while petrol costs Rwf1609 per liter. The fuel prices revised every two months depending on price changes on the international market will go into effect for two months from 8th August 2022.

The rise in fuel prices saw the cost of diesel increasing by Rwf104 from Rwf1503 while the price of petrol rose by Rwf149 from Rwf1460.

Speaking to RTV on Sunday, the Minister of Infrastructure, Dr. Ernest Nsabimana revealed that the prices would have gone much higher hadn’t it been the government’s subsidy program.

He said that government injected almost Rwf10 billion to subsidize prices.

NISR has revealed that food prices in Rwanda increased by 28.6% in July 2022.