Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Inflation in Djibouti slowed to 4 percent in September as the cost of some foods fell, the Department of Statistics and Demographic Studies said.

The inflation rate dropped from 4.6 percent in August, the Djibouti City-based agency said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. Prices rose 1.4 percent in the month, it said.

Djibouti, which hosts about 2,500 U.S. military personnel at the Camp Lemonnier military base, is a Horn of Africa nation about the size of Massachusetts. The country has a $982 million economy with fewer than 1 million people that relies on services related to its strategic location on the Red Sea, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, according to the U.S. State Department.

--Editors: Paul Richardson, Shaji Mathew.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mohamed Osman Farah in Djibouti at mosmanfarah@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Richardson at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.