According to the Central Administration of Statistics (CAS), the monthly change in Lebanon’s consumer price index stood at 33.27% in March 2023, compared to 25.52% in the previous month. On an annual basis, Lebanon’s CPI soared by 263.84% to 3,710.53 in March, compared to 1,019.81 in March of the previous year, with the average annual inflation rate for the first quarter of 2023 standing at 193.04%. All index constituents saw a sharp rise in their respective prices owing to the acute depreciation of the Lebanese Pound against the US Dollar breaking the LBP 107,000 mark in the parallel market during the concerned month. In details, the index portrays a 352.34% increase in the prices of food & non-alcoholic beverages (20.0% weight in the index), a 300.75% 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 211.82% rally in the prices of housing – water, electricity, gas & other fuels (11.8% weight in the index) in part owing to the hike in the kilowatt hour rate to 27 cents per US Dollar, not to mention the frantic 373.90% rise in health prices (7.7% weight in the index), the 193.02% appreciation in education prices (6.6% weight in the index) and the unprecedented 620.80% 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 the North (38.54%) followed by the Bekaa (34.68%), Mount Lebanon (33.57%), Beirut (32.00%), Nabatieh (27.11%), and South (25.65%) regions.