Photo for illustration (Photo: Luca Sola / AFP)
The inflation rate rose slightly from 3.0% in February to 3.1% in March. This is according to the latest consumer price index (CPI) which was released by Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) on Wednesday.
At the same time, food inflation cooled further to 3.6% in March compared to 3.7% in February and 4.4% in January.
Six of the 13 main categories in the inflation basket showed higher annual increases, including education, accommodation and food.
Education pushes up inflation
Education made a significant contribution to the increase. School and study fees rose by an average of 5.4% compared to 4.5% last year.
Primary and secondary education increased by 6.2% (from 5.0% in 2025), while tertiary education increased by 4.2% (from 3.7%). Private high schools recorded the sharpest rise with an increase of 7.5%.
Photo for illustration (Photo: Luca Sola / AFP)
Food prices show further relief
Four of the 11 food categories showed year-on-year deflation, including fruit, vegetables, dairy and grain products.
The category for milk, dairy products and eggs recorded deflation for the tenth consecutive month (-0.5%). Fresh full cream milk (-0.4%), powdered milk (-5.5%) and eggs (-6.3%) were all cheaper than a year ago.
Cereal products fell by an average of 1%. This includes products such as rice, maize flour, porridge and bread which are cheaper than in March last year.
Meat fell for the second consecutive month with beef prices starting to cool between February and March. Decreases were recorded for stew beef (-4.2%), steak (-2.0%), mince (-1.9%) and offal (-1.5%). Biltong lovers can also be relieved, as prices fell slightly by 0.2%.
The annual inflation rate for meat also slowed to 11.6% from 12.2% in February. Beef products showed lower inflation rates. Steak in particular fell from 28.6% in February to 24.1% in March, and stew beef from 26.9% to 22.6%. However, pork bucked the trend and rose from 17.3% to 19.5%. Bacon inflation increased from 2.2% to 4.2%.
StatsSA points out that March’s data does not yet include the impact of April’s sharp fuel increase or the conflict in Iran, which will probably emerge more clearly in the next inflation figure.