According to the Central Administration of Statistics (CAS), the monthly change in Lebanon’s consumer price index stood at 2.57% in November 2023, compared to 17.22% in the previous month. On an annual basis, Lebanon’s CPI rallied by 211.86% to 5,976.8 in November 2023, compared to 1,916.5 in November of the previous year, with the average annual inflation rate for the first eleven months of 2023 attaining 225.37%. All index constituents saw a sharp rise in their respective prices owing to the acute depreciation of the Lebanese Pound against the US Dollar. In details, the index portrays a 219.98% increase in the prices of food & non-alcoholic beverages (20.0% weight in the index), a 142.68% 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 144.99% rally in the prices of housing – water, electricity, gas & other fuels (11.8% weight in the index), not to mention the frantic 186.74% rise in healthcare prices (7.7% weight in the index), some 595.18% appreciation in education prices (6.6% weight in the index) and the unprecedented 183.65% 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. It is worth noting that restaurants & hotels prices soared by 214.94% y-o-y (2.8% weight in the index) and were accompanied by some 134.23% rally in the prices of recreation, amusement and culture (2.4% weight in the index) as the Lebanese economy has shifted to a dollarized cash one. The following section captures the fluctuation in the key constituents of Lebanon’s consumer basket: 

On a geographical basis, all regions across Lebanon, barring Nabatieh (1.14% monthly drop) saw a monthly rise in their CPI values, with the sharpest increase taking place in the North (5.46%), followed by the South (3.41%), Beirut (2.22%), Mount Lebanon (2.02%), and Bekaa (1.85%) regions.