According to the Central Administration of Statistics (CAS), the monthly change in Lebanon’s consumer price index stood at 14.65% in October 2022, compared to 8.40% in the previous month. On an annual basis, Lebanon’s CPI soared by 158.46% to 1,847.45 in October, compared to 714.78 a year earlier. The average annual increase in Lebanon’s CPI stood at 194.14% in the first ten months of 2022 when compared to the same period in 2021. All index constituents saw a sharp rise in their respective prices. In details, the index portrays a 203.21% increase in the prices of food & non-alcoholic beverages (20.0% weight in the index), a 195.95% surge in transportation prices (13.1% weight in the index) amid the rise in fuel & gasoline prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a shambolic 254.05% rally in the prices of housing – water, electricity, gas & other fuels (11.8% weight in the index), not to mention the frantic 269.72% rise in health prices (7.7% weight in the index) and the 191.35% appreciation in education prices (6.6% weight in the index) after the shift to partial or total fresh dollar pricing. The following section captures the fluctuation in the key constituents of Lebanon’s consumer basket:

On a geographical basis, all regions saw a monthly rise in their CPI values, with the largest increase taking place in the North (16.54%) followed by the South (14.65%), Mount Lebanon (14.56%), Beirut (14.41%), the Bekaa (12.92%), and Nabatieh (10.20%) regions.