By tradeability, inflation increased from 6.8 percent to 7.0 percent in the tradeable category, but remained at 4.5 percent for non-tradeable goods and services.
The trimmed mean measure of core inflation was 5.9 percent in May, up 0.4 percent from 5.5 percent. Using the measure that excluded administered prices, inflation also rose by 0.4 percent, from 6.1 percent in April to 6.5 percent.
Meanwhile, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) has started publishing measures of core inflation on a monthly basis, hence this will be part of the monthly inflation highlight posted on the Bank of Botswana (BoB) website.
The core inflation measure is intended to capture underlying long-term inflation by excluding the influence of price changes which result from temporary supply shocks, and/or are not entirely because of normal supply or demand forces prevailing in the markets.
Two measures have been adopted for publication: the 16 percent trimmed mean, and inflation excluding the impact of administered prices such as for fuel, public transport and utilities.
For more details of these measures, see the May 2007 Consumer Price Index (CPI) brief, published by CSO, and the technical guide to the new CPI basket, scheduled to be published in August.
