Tanzania's inflation slows in January due to food prices

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - Tanzanian inflation fell in January, helped by a slower rises in food prices, the statistics office said on Monday. The National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement inflation fell to 6.5 percent year-on-year in January from 6.8 percent a month earlier. Prices increased by 0.7 percent month-on-month in January from a 0.5 percent rise in December 2015, the NBS said. It said food and non-alcoholic beverages inflation fell to 10.7 percent in the year to January from 11.1 percent in December 2015. The statistics office said the weight given to food in the basket of goods and services used to calculate Tanzania's inflation rate had also been cut to 38.5 percent from 47.8 percent previously. Tanzania's Finance and Planning Minister Philip Mpango said last week inflation was expected to remain in single digits and fall to 6.0 percent by June 2016 and stay between 5 and 8 percent in the medium term. (Reporting by Fumbuka Ng'wanakilala; Writing by George Obulutsa)