The Central Administration of Statistics' Consumer Price Index increased by 10.7% in the first two months of 2020, compared to a growth of 3.2% in the same period of 2019. Also, the CPI expanded by 11.4% in February 2020 from the same month of 2019, the highest increase since December 2008.
 
The surge in inflation is due in part to the deterioration of the Lebanese pound's exchange rate on the parallel market that encouraged opportunistic wholesalers and retailers to raise consumer prices disproportionately. It also reflects the authorities' inability to monitor and to contain the price hikes.
 
The prices of alcoholic beverages & tobacco grew by 36.6% annually in February 2020, followed by the prices of clothing & footwear (+31%), the prices of furnishings & household equipment (+30.5%), the prices of food & non-alcoholic beverages (+19.8%), transportation costs (+17.7%), recreation & entertainment costs (+15%), the cost of miscellaneous goods & services (+10%), actual rents (+5.3%), prices at restaurants & hotels (+5.2%), the cost of education (+4%), communication costs (+3.1%), imputed rents (+3%), the prices of water, electricity, gas & other fuels (+2.2%), and healthcare costs (+1.3%). In addition, the distribution of actual rents shows that old rents grew by 8% and new rents increased by 3.4% annually in February 2020.

In parallel, the CPI increased by 1.4% in February 2020 from the previous month, compared to a month-on-month growth of 2.1% in January 2020. The prices of furnishings & household equipment grew by 6.7% month-on-month in February 2020, followed by the prices of food & non-alcoholic beverages (+4.6%), actual rents (+2.8%), the prices of alcoholic beverages & tobacco (+2.4%), recreation & entertainment costs (+2.2%), the cost of miscellaneous goods & services (+1.8%), the prices of clothing & footwear and transportation costs (+0.9% each), prices at restaurants & hotels (+0.8%), imputed rents (+0.7%), and healthcare costs (+0.3%). In contrast, the cost of water, electricity, gas & other fuels declined by 2.5% month-on-month in February 2020, while the costs of education and communication were nearly unchanged in the covered month.