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 6.06% in May 2021, compared to 7.76% in the previous month. On an annual basis, Lebanon’s CPI soared by 119.83% to 378.25 in May 2021, compared to 172.06 a year earlier. The average annual increase in Lebanon’s CPI stood at 140.46% in the first five months of 2021 when compared to the same period in 2020. All index constituents saw a sharp rise in their respective prices. In details, the index portrays a 302.78% annual appreciation in the prices of clothing & footwear (5.2% weight in the index), a 226.11% increase in the prices of food & non-alcoholic beverages (20.0% weight in the index), a 255.75% surge in transportation prices (13.1% weight in the index), and a shambolic 446.42% rally in the prices of furnishings, household equipment & routine household maintenance (3.8% weight in the index), not to mention the frantic 293.87% 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 Bekaa (6.81%) followed by Beirut (6.66%), Nabatieh (6.40%), North (6.34%), Mount Lebanon (5.75%) and the South (5.32%) regions.