Business Reporter
THE annual inflation rate for March 2026 stood at 2.1%, compared to 4.2% recorded in March 2025. On a monthly basis, inflation stood at 0.2 percent, up from 0.0 percent observed in the previous month. Core inflation stood at 2.9%, higher than the headline inflation rate.
This is according to the Namibia Consumer Price Index (NCPI) Trade Bulletin for March 2026, released by the Namibia Statistics Agency.
Alex Shimuafeni, Statistician-General of the NSA, said that the month of March saw the highest annual inflation rates recorded by Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels (4.6%); followed by Health (4.5%); Recreation and culture (3.9%); Hotels, cafés and restaurants (3.7%); Furnishing, household equipment and routine maintenance of the house (3.4%); and Education (2.4%), while all other groups recorded inflation rates below 2 percent each.
“The Housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels component, which accounts for 28.4% of the consumer basket, recorded an annual inflation rate of 4.6% in March 2026, compared to 3.8% in March 2025. The increase in annual inflation for this category was mainly driven by price increases in the sub-components electricity, gas and other fuels, which increased from 1.8% to 4.1%. On a monthly basis, the category recorded an inflation rate of 0.1%, unchanged from a similar rate observed in the previous month,” Shimuafeni said.
He added that Food and non-alcoholic beverages, which carry a weight of 16.5% in the NCPI basket, recorded an annual inflation rate of 1.7% in March 2026, down from 6.2% registered in the same period of 2025. On a monthly basis, this category recorded an increase of 0.4%, compared to 0.5% recorded in the previous month.
The Transport category, which carries a weight of 14.3% in the consumer basket, recorded a deflation of 1.7% in March 2026, compared to a 2.6% increase observed in March 2025. The decrease was reflected in all the sub-components of this category. On a monthly basis, this category recorded an inflation rate of 0.4% in March 2026, up from a deflation of 1.2% recorded in the previous month.
In total, the main contributors to the 2.1% annual inflation rate for March 2026 were ‘Housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels’, which contributed 1.1 percentage points, followed by ‘Food and non-alcoholic beverages’, contributing 0.4 percentage points. ‘Alcoholic beverages and tobacco’, together with all other groups, each contributed 0.3 percentage points.
Picture for illustrative purposes only. Photo: File
