According to the Central Administration of Statistics (CAS), monthly inflation in Lebanon, as captured by the change in the consumer price index (CPI), stood at 0.52% in November 2020, compared to 3.89% in the previous month. On an annual basis, Lebanon’s CPI soared by 133.47% to 262.64 in November 2020, compared to 112.49 a year earlier as all index constituents saw a sharp rise in their respective prices. In details, the index portrays a 461.83% annual appreciation in the prices of clothing & footwear (5.2% weight in the index), a 423.20% increase in the prices of food & non-alcoholic beverages (20.0% weight in the index), a 128.94% surge in transportation prices (13.1% weight in the index), and a shambolic 669.86% rally in the prices of furnishings, household equipment & routine household maintenance (3.8% weight in the index), not to mention the frantic 405.29% rise in the prices of alcoholic beverages & tobacco (1.4% weight in the index). The following section captures the fluctuation in the key constituents of Lebanon’s consumer basket:

On a geographical basis, all regions, barring Nabatieh (-0.01%), saw a monthly hike in their CPI values, led by Beirut (1.68%) followed by the South (0.95%), Mount Lebanon (0.46%), Bekaa (0.37%), and the North (0.05%) regions.