ACCRA, Feb 3 (Reuters) – Ghana’s consumer inflation dipped slightly to 23.5% year-on-year in January from 23.8% in December, the statistics service said on Monday.

Government statistician Samuel Kobina Annim told a news conference that the latest decline was driven by a slowdown in non-food inflation.

“Although rate of inflation has slowed down by 0.3 percentage points, the figure of 23.5% is the second highest in the last nine months,” Annim said, adding that food prices continued to rise.

The west African country is emerging from its worst economic crisis in a generation, with turmoil in the vital cocoa and gold industries.

However, its inflation remains well above Bank of Ghana’s 8% target with a margin of error of 2 percentage points either side.

The central bank said last week that it would take longer for inflation to return within the 6%-10% range.

(Reporting by Maxwell Akalaare Adombila and Christian Akorlie; Writing by Anait Miridzhanian; Editing by Bate Felix)