Headline inflation reached 35.1 percent last month, said the Ethiopian Statistics Service in its report delayed by over two weeks from the usual timeline.

Last month’s inflation is the highest in over a decade, a development the Service attributed to the holiday season, which is characterized by spike in prices of food items.

Cost of living has been surging in the last two years, due to supply side problems and fast depreciation of Birr against major baskets of foreign currencies, among others. The soar in prices of food is the major factor for the inflationary pressure.

Last month, food inflation stood at 41.6 percent, the highest in three months. The cost of non-food items also exhibited an upsurge last month. It has reached 26.6 percent, the highest in over 10 years.