Statistics released this week have shown a 3.7 per cent increase in consumer price inflation year-on-year. This reverses a downward trend the previous month.
This was partially resultant from a 4.1 per cent increase in the price of domestic goods, and 5.2 per cent increase in agricultural goods. However the price of imported good was only up 0.9 per cent which is good news for a country so dependent on imported items.
More worrying is the increase in unemployment rate to 5 per cent, up half a point on November 2012, with 9,300 currently unemployed, according to separate statistics.
Inflation has dropped overall from highs of 6.5 per cent at the beginning of 2012 and bottomed out a 3.3 per cent mid-year before rising again. It spiked in August.
Apart from a shocking peak of 18 per cent in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, inflation has remained below 5 per cent, consistent with the last decade. In 2012 it was recorded as 4.18 per cent, and likely to be lower for 2013.