Inflation in the CEMAC region reached 2.3% year on year in June 2026, up from 1% in March, driven by food, energy and transport, according to a note published on Tuesday 13 October by the Bank of Central African States.
On an annual-average basis, inflation remained at 1.4% in June, as it had three months earlier, compared with 3.5% in June 2025. This indicator, which differs from the year-on-year change in prices, remains below the community norm of 3%.
Food products and non-alcoholic beverages contributed 1.4 point to the year-on-year increase, compared with 0.9 point a year earlier. Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels added 0.3 point, while transport contributed 0.2 point.
The BEAC links this rise to higher energy prices since March, to rising global food prices and to the first effects of the conflict in the Middle East. The appreciation of the Nigerian naira has also made certain fuels and equipment imported by Cameroon and Chad more expensive, while the strength of the Congolese franc has weighed on purchases of food staples and fishery products by the Republic of Congo from the DRC.
Domestic factors remain decisive. Private consumption was supported by gold revenues in Chad and the Central African Republic, as well as by cocoa revenues in Cameroon. Good harvests in Cameroon and Chad and the partial retention of cost-of-living measures have, however, improved the supply of food staples and limited price increases.
Cameroon, which accounts for 52.3% of the regional price index, is the main contributor to the increase in the subregion. It is followed by Congo, Equatorial Guinea, the Central African Republic and Gabon. Chad, by contrast, slowed the regional index thanks to prices that were still falling year on year.
Locally sourced inflation, which covers 70.3% of the basket, accelerated to 2.5% year on year, from 1.8% in June 2025. Imported inflation rose from 0.8% to 1.7% over the same period, reflecting the beginning of the transmission of the external energy shock to prices paid in the region.
In its baseline scenario, the BEAC forecasts average inflation of 2% in 2026, 2.2% in 2027 and 2.9% in 2028. It places the main risk between the end of 2026 and the first half of 2027, when higher fuel and freight costs could pass through to imported goods, followed by fertiliser prices feeding through to harvests and food prices.