Sudan inflation down to 18.3 pct in June: statistics agency

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan's inflation rate declined to 18.3 percent in June from 19.8 percent in May, the Central Statistics Office said on Tuesday. Prices soared in Sudan after South Sudan seceded in 2011, taking with it three-quarters of the country's oil output, the main source of foreign currency used to support the Sudanese pound and to pay for food and other imports. Fuel subsidy cuts introduced in 2013 also pushed up inflation, but their effects have since begun to ease. The latest inflation decline was partly "due to the government not introducing any further subsidy cuts on fuel or other commodities," Al-Alim Abdel Ghani, a senior statistics official, told Reuters. Inflation was slightly up in March and April but has generally been easing since last summer, when it was in the mid-forties. In May this year it slowed to 19.8 percent from 24.3 in April. As an oil importer, Sudan is benefiting from the 50 percent fall in global oil prices since June last year. Sudan's Omar Hassan al-Bashir was re-elected president in April. His ruling party argued it had pulled the economy out of a tailspin after the South's secession.