National inflation kept falling while one week’s fares and telecoms ran at more than twice the aggregate.

By Kanisa Magazine · August 2025

Congo’s national inflation rate fell to 7.76 per cent in the year to 22 August 2025, and the second week of August showed what that single number hides. In the week of 11 to 15 August the statistics institute’s overall price index rose 0.174 per cent, but transport rose 0.438 per cent and communications 0.399 per cent, more than twice the headline. The franc was flat that week. Prices that moved faster than the aggregate were driven by something other than the exchange rate.

For a household, the number that matters is the price of the weekly basket, and that depends on food, fares and fuel. Reading those three lines separately is the only way to see who is under pressure.

The week the aggregate hid

Transport and telecoms ran at double the headline while food stayed close to it.

The BCC digest of 27 August reproduces the INS series by function. In the first three weeks of August the national index rose 0.147, 0.174 and 0.128 per cent a week, which compounds to about 8 per cent a year. Food and non-alcoholic drinks moved 0.165, 0.150 and 0.132 per cent, close to the aggregate. Transport moved 0.194, 0.438 and 0.207 per cent. Housing and utilities ran at 0.217 and 0.200 per cent in the second and third weeks. Since 31 December the national index has risen 5.37 per cent, and Kinshasa’s has risen 5.51 per cent, with annual inflation in the capital at 8.06 per cent on 22 August.

Why fares and fuel move differently

Pump prices are set by region, so the same litre costs far more in the south and east.

The BCC reproduces the economy ministry’s table of regulated fuel prices, and the latest entry in it, dated 3 October 2024, shows how large the regional spread is. Petrol was set at 2,990.49 francs a litre in the west, 3,776 in the east and 4,165 in the south. Diesel was 2,979.73 in the west, 3,762 in the east and 4,395 in the south. A litre in the south costs 39 per cent more than in the west for petrol and 48 per cent more for diesel. The table records no change since, so the August fare increases are not a pump-price decision. They reflect operators’ costs in a market where vehicles, spare parts and tyres are imported and priced in dollars.

The mechanism: from the dollar to the plate

Imports set the ceiling for local goods, and roads set the floor under the delivered price.

The IMF’s country report says dollarisation gives Congo a high pass-through from the exchange rate to inflation, which is why a depreciation of 6.2 per cent in 2024 fed through so quickly. With the franc steady, that channel was quiet in August. The remaining channels are physical. Africa24 reported late in August that the country’s annual food-import bill is around $3 billion, so the world price of rice, flour and canned fish enters the household basket in dollars. Local staples then follow the cost of the road.

ACP documented that mechanism in Kinshasa in March 2024, when a 100 kg sack of cassava cossettes went from 130,000 to 160,000 francs in a month. A market operator blamed road deterioration and the franc’s slide to 2,750. Road and currency together set the price; a calm franc removes one and leaves the other.

Where the pressure falls

Households that spend most on transport and food carry the most, and those are the poorest.

An urban household that commutes by minibus and buys food daily spends a larger share of income on the two lines that rose fastest in August than a salaried professional does. Because each function is only one slice of a broad index, a spike in one moves the headline little, yet it can take a bigger bite from a poor household’s budget. The aggregate therefore understates the pressure at the bottom of the income range and overstates it at the top.

What businesses should do with the signal

Track the lines your customers spend on, not the aggregate.

Retailers selling to lower-income customers should watch transport and food weekly rather than the headline, since those are the budget lines that cut demand for everything else. Distributors in the south and east should add a regional fuel premium to their cost models and not average it away against the capital. Employers considering a pay review should benchmark against the 8 per cent annualised pace and the transport line, since commuting cost is what staff will raise first. The headline fall in inflation is real and welcome, and a business that reads only the headline will misjudge its own customers.