(Business in Cameroon) - Inflation rate in Cameroon has reached 3.4% during Q1 2015 against 1.1% for the same period last year, National Institute of Statistics (INS) reveals in its latest report on price dynamic in the country. For the first time since 2011, this rate has passed the 3% standard of the CEMAC.

According to INS, this global increase of prices observed at the end of June 2015 is mostly due to the 14.5% surge in the prices of goods and services of transport after the soaring of fuel price in July 2014. Asides this, there is also, “the 5.2% increase in the price of goods and services of restaurants and hotels arising from price of industrial beers raising in February 2015 which also caused a 4.1% increase of alcoholic drinks, tobacco and narcotics,” INS adds.

Meanwhile, over the same period, the institute’s analysis brought up that prices of vegetables have increased by 9%, meat by 4.5%... And just like vegetables and meat, local products also became more expensive with their price increasing by 3.4% against 1.6% only for imported products, with rice as the first of these (tax-free since February 2008 hunger riots)..

However, despite all these alarming signals sent by INS, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) during its most recent evaluation on Cameroon, announced that the country’s inflation rate in 2015 would be below the standard 3% fixed in CEMAC, for a GDP growth which will increase by 6%.