According to the Central Administration of Statistics (CAS), the monthly change in Lebanon’s consumer price index stood at 8.43% in January 2023, compared to 6.73% in the previous month. On an annual basis, Lebanon’s CPI soared by 123.53% to 2217.99 in January, compared to 992.24 in January of the previous year. All index constituents saw a sharp rise in their respective prices. In details, the index portrays a 138.47% increase in the prices of food & non-alcoholic beverages (20.0% weight in the index), a 135.21% 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 162.82% rally in the prices of housing – water, electricity, gas & other fuels (11.8% weight in the index), not to mention the frantic 175.95% 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 331.07% 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 sharpest increase taking place in Nabatieh (9.86%) followed by the Mount Lebanon (8.55%), North (8.40%), Beirut (8.31%), Bekaa (7.74%), and South (7.62%) regions.