News
JAM | Aug 17, 2022

Jamaica’s annual Inflation jumps to double digit in July

/ Our Today

administrator
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Inflation for the month went up 0.7%

The offices of the Statistical Institute of Jamaica.

Jamaica’s annual inflation, from July 2021-July 2022 has jumped into double digits, registering an increase of 10.2 per cent as measured by the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN).

Inflation went up 0.7 per cent for July 2022.

This increase was due mainly to a 1.4 per cent jump in the index for the heavily weighted ‘Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages’ division in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) or the basket of goods and services, which measures inflation.

INCREASED WATER AND SEWAGE RATES

All classes within the ‘Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages’ division recorded increases with the classes: ‘Vegetables, tubers, plantains, cooking bananas and pulses’ (3.0%), ‘Cereals and cereal products’ (1.7%), ‘Meat and other parts of slaughtered land animals’ (0.8%) and ‘Fish and Seafood’ (0.7%), having the strongest overall impact on the division.

Also contributing to the upward movement in the CPI for July was an increase of 0.3 per cent in the index for the division ‘Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels’. This was mainly a result of increased water and sewage rates.

Other notable divisional increases were recorded in the index for the ‘Transport’ division (0.4%), influenced mainly by higher petrol prices and increased toll rates for the East-West leg of Highway 2000 and in the index for the ‘Personal Care, Social Protection and Miscellaneous Goods and Services’ division (0.8%), due primarily to higher prices for personal care products and services.

The point-to-point inflation rate (July 2021 – July 2022) of 10.2 per cent was influenced mainly by the point-to-point inflation rate for the divisions: ‘Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages’ (12.6%), ‘Transport’ (15.2%) and ‘Restaurant and Accommodation Services’ (19.1%).

The fiscal year-to-date inflation rate was 1.9 per cent. The CPI measures changes in the general level of prices for consumer goods and services purchased by private households.

Comments

What To Read Next

News JAM Jul 8, 2025

Reading Time: 3 minutesThe Minister of Education, Skills, Youth and Information, Dana Morris Dixon is describing attacks by the parliamentary opposition on the Government’s Rural School Bus System, for which phase 1 will be rolled out starting September 2025, as baseless, unfortunate and unhelpful, particularly given the importance of the initiative to thousands of children and families across rural Jamaica.

Minister Dixon says she is particularly disappointed by remarks from Opposition Leader Mark Golding who used a political platform to disparage the buses as “old” and proposed that school children be transported by “di likkle man who have dem pro-box and AR wagon”.

News JAM Jul 8, 2025

Reading Time: 2 minutesPrime Minister Andrew Holness has urged Jamaicans to remain faithful as the government continues to work to ensure that all residents have access to an adequate water supply.

“For the communities that are without water now, your voice is heard. I personally care about it. And the government that I administer on your behalf, we are working hard to correct and improve. And you can take hope and have faith because others who were in your position now have water,” he said.

News JAM Jul 8, 2025

Reading Time: 3 minutesPrime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, has called on CARICOM leaders to continue championing regional unity as the Caribbean faces growing social, economic, and geopolitical challenges.

Reflecting on her first address to the Conference of Heads of Government of CARICOM in 2018, Mottley noted that the region is now confronting perhaps its most difficult period since achieving independence.