South Sudan Says Inflation Slowing as War-Torn Economy Improves

(Bloomberg) -- Inflation in South Sudan slowed to 49 percent in September, after soaring to eight times that in the previous two years, as increased oil output boosts the war-torn nation’s economy, the central bank governor said.

“The resumption of oil production in Bentiu and the current upward movement of prices of oil has made our foreign reserves much much better than a year or two ago,” Dier Tong Ngor told reporters Thursday in the capital, Juba, referring to crude facilities in the country’s north.

A civil war in Africa’s youngest nation has claimed tens of thousands of lives since it erupted in December 2013, with temporary declines in oil production and crude prices fueling economic chaos. South Sudan’s national statistics bureau stopped publishing inflation data after July 2017, when the figure was about 155 percent, down from 362 percent the month before.

The central bank now “has the capacity to meet market needs for foreign exchange for the importation of fuel and food items,” Ngor said. The inflation figure he gave covers prices in Juba and Wau, a northwestern city.

To contact the reporter on this story: Okech Francis in Juba at fokech@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Richardson at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net, Michael Gunn, Pauline Bax

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