Casablanca – Consumer prices in Morocco rose by 6.3% year on year in the second quarter of 2022, a pace well above the 2% mark, the High Commission for Planning (HCP) reported.
This acceleration stemmed from a 9.5% increase in food prices and a 4.1% increase in non-food costs, according to the HCP’s business conditions report for the second quarter of 2022 and assessment for the third quarter.
The increase in food costs was mostly due to the continuous growth in the price of non-fresh items, which contributed 3.3 points to the evolution of prices, the HCP notes.
According to the report, the rise in grain and vegetable oil costs, as well as chicken meat and milk and dairy products, was driven by the worldwide hike in prices of agricultural commodities and the increase in the prices of compound feed and livestock.
The report also indicates that fresh product prices recovered in the second quarter of 2022, contributing 0.4 percentage points in the wake of the more pronounced rise in fresh vegetable prices.
With regard to non-food products, price pressures mostly affected fuels (+1.4 points) and, to a lesser extent, manufactured goods (+0.7 points).
Despite the increase in tourist packages, service costs witnessed a less persistent increase compared to the same period last year (+1.4% instead of +1.8% in 2021).
Underlying inflation, which excludes government-mandated prices and items with unpredictable pricing, is reported to have climbed substantially to +5% in the second quarter of 2002. According to HCP, this increase was driven by the extremely dynamic evolution of its components, notably food and manufacturing, as a result of growing production costs.
Despite a significant increase in consumer prices and a fall in rural earnings, HCP expects final consumption to remain moderate across Morocco throughout 2022.
