In February 2018, headline inflation rose to 3.2 percent from 3.1 percent in January. According to the latest data from Statistics Botswana, inflation rose for some commodity groups, including: transport (from 5 to 5.2 percent); restaurants and hotels (from 3.4 to 3.5 percent) and miscellaneous goods and services (from 3 to 3.2 percent). However, this was partly offset by a fall of inflation for: alcoholic beverages and tobacco (from 2.4 to 1.8 percent); clothing and footwear (from 2.1 to 2 percent); furnishing, household equipment and routine maintenance (from 2.2 to 2 percent) and recreation and culture (from 1.9 to 1.8 percent). Inflation was unchanged for: food and non-alcoholic beverages (0.4 percent); housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels (5.8 percent); health (1.4 percent); communication (1.2 percent) and education (5.5 percent).
The trimmed mean measure of core inflation increased from 2.8 to 2.9 percent while inflation excluding administered prices was unchanged at 2.2 percent.