According to the Central Administration of Statistics (CAS), the monthly change in Lebanon’s consumer price index stood at 6.73% in December 2022, compared to 3.74% in the previous month. On an annual basis, Lebanon’s CPI soared by 121.99% to break the 2,000 threshold (2045.46) in December, compared to 921.40 a year earlier, with the average annual inflation rate for the year 2022 standing at 171.21%. All index constituents saw a sharp rise in their respective prices. In details, the index portrays a 142.94% increase in the prices of food & non-alcoholic beverages (20.0% weight in the index), a 127.22% 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 148.42% rally in the prices of housing – water, electricity, gas & other fuels (11.8% weight in the index), not to mention the frantic 167.46% rise in health prices (7.7% weight in the index), the 191.35% appreciation in education prices (6.6% weight in the index) and the 311.86% hike in communication prices (4.5% weight in the index) after the shift to partial or total fresh dollar pricing in the healthcare, education and communication sectors. 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 Bekaa (7.31%) followed by the Mount Lebanon (7.15%), North (6.69%), South (6.65%), Nabatieh (6.04%), and Beirut (4.80%) regions.