BCC weekly baskets show cooking oil and tubers rising fastest, with transport lagging behind.

By Kanisa Magazine · May 2023

The price pressure on Congolese households in May sat in the kitchen, not at the petrol pump. The BCC’s national weekly retail index, published in its digest of 24 May, rose 2.1 per cent over the four weeks from 17-23 April to 15-21 May, from 157.970 to 161.342. Food and non-alcoholic drinks rose faster, 2.6 per cent, from 166.721 to 171.123.

The headline rate for the year was 16.87 per cent in the policy table for 19 May, the series the BCC uses to compute its real policy rate. The weekly basket in the same digest shows a year-on-year rise of about 30 per cent for the week to 21 May. The two series use different bases, so the safer reading is the direction: prices were rising in every weekly reading.

Which prices moved

Cooking oil, tubers and electricity led, while transport and communications trailed.

Over the same four weeks, oils and fats rose 3.8 per cent, from 142.833 to 148.197. Potatoes, manioc, other tubers and bananas rose 3.6 per cent, from 243.983 to 252.664, and meat 2.1 per cent. Electricity, gas and other fuels rose 2.1 per cent. Communications moved 2.2 per cent and transport only 1.2 per cent, from 147.149 to 148.927.

Two cities, two baskets

Kinshasa’s tubers and Lubumbashi’s bread and cereals carried the pressure.

The BCC publishes separate indices for twelve cities, and the two largest show different patterns. In Kinshasa the general index rose 1.9 per cent between the weeks of 24-30 April and 15-21 May, from 201.805 to 205.737. Food rose 2.3 per cent, and tubers, manioc and bananas 4.2 per cent, from 495.609 to 516.573. In Lubumbashi, the copperbelt hub, food rose 2.8 per cent, from 177.571 to 182.454, and bread and cereals 3.1 per cent, from 151.422 to 156.103. Transport in Kinshasa rose 1.7 per cent, and the rise in personal-vehicle running costs, which include fuel, was 1.6 per cent over the same weeks. The BCC tables give no causes, but the split is consistent with wheat and maize products reaching Lubumbashi over long, costly routes while Kinshasa depends on cassava hauled from the provinces.

The transmission from the franc

A thirteen per cent currency move in seven weeks reaches the market through imported inputs.

The franc’s official indicative rate moved from about CDF 2,036 per dollar at the end of March to about CDF 2,304 on 19 May, according to the same digest, a rise of 13.2 per cent in the franc price of the dollar. Cooking oil, flour, rice and fuel carry a large imported component, so a currency move of that size reaches their shelf prices within weeks. Tubers are mostly local, which makes their 3.6 per cent rise a signal of a different squeeze: transport and handling costs between farm and market.

What the BCC said

Officials described a stabilising picture while the weekly baskets kept climbing.

Governor Malangu Kabedi Mbuyi told a 12 May briefing, reported by Desk Eco, that weekly price formation had slowed from 0.38 per cent to 0.21 per cent and that year-to-date inflation stood at 7 per cent, with a year-end projection of 11.5 per cent. In March the BCC had put cumulative inflation at 5.1 per cent as of 17 March, as Actualite.cd reported, driven mainly by food. Those are attributed official figures on the BCC’s headline measure; the weekly national basket moved by about half a per cent in each of its latest weeks.

What a business should do

Reprice against the basket that your customers actually buy.

A bakery, restaurant or retailer whose costs track oil, flour and tubers faces input inflation above the headline, and should set price lists to the food sub-index and not to the 16.87 per cent figure. Wage negotiators should expect food-led demands. Importers of staples should lock dollar quotes forward, because the pass-through from a thirteen per cent currency move to the retail price is already visible in the oil and tuber lines. The next BCC digest will show whether the weekly pace of half a per cent persists or eases. Procurement managers should also ask suppliers to quote separate lines for imported and local content, so that a further franc move is passed through only on the part that is actually dollar-priced.