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 8.33% in March 2021, compared to 4.59% in the previous month. On an annual basis, Lebanon’s CPI soared by 157.86% to 330.97 in March 2021, compared to 128.35 a year earlier as all index constituents saw a sharp rise in their respective prices. In details, the index portrays a 546.61% annual appreciation in the prices of clothing & footwear (5.2% weight in the index), a 394.81% increase in the prices of food & non-alcoholic beverages (20.0% weight in the index), a 234.28% surge in transportation prices (13.1% weight in the index), and a shambolic 693.04% rally in the prices of furnishings, household equipment & routine household maintenance (3.8% weight in the index), not to mention the frantic 721.81% rise in the prices of restaurants & hotels (2.8% 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 saw a monthly hike in their CPI values, led by the South (9.02%) followed by the Nabatieh (8.81%), Mount Lebanon (8.70%), Bekaa (7.92%), the North (7.75%) and the Beirut (7.21%) regions.