Kigali — Rwanda's annual inflation dropped significantly by 2.08 percent from 4.54 percent in the month January to 2.46 percent in February, according to the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR).

The underlying inflation, which excludes fresh food and energy, cooled to 6.1 percent in February from 7.4 percent in the previous month.

"The decrease in the consumer prices index is attributable to the decrease in food and non-alcoholic beverages," the NISR said Wednesday in a statement.

The national statistics body said that price of food and non-alcoholic beverages reduced by 1.65 percent while prices of housing, water, electricity and other fuels registered a slight decline of 1.02 percent.

"It is noted that the decrease of 1.65 percent in prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages is primarily attributable to the decrease of 1.5 percent of vegetables and 2.05 percent of bread and cereals," the statement said.

However the increase in the general index of 2.46 percent was mainly attributed to the rising prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages as well as transport which contributed 0.74 percent and 1.43 percent respectively, the NISR says.

Transport prices increased on the back of a rise in oil prices on the world market.

However, locally produced goods retreated 3.07 percent on annual change with a monthly variation of -0.53 percent as prices of imported products gained by 0.13 percent on annual change with a monthly variation -0.12 percent.

Prices of fresh products had a positive annual change of 4.77 percent between February 2010 and February 2009.