ZIMBABWE’S year-on-year inflation rate for the month of May rose to 97,85%, up 21,99 percentage points on the April rate of 75,86% as the country further plunges into economic turmoil.
BY MISHMA CHAKANYUKA
According to the Zimbabwe Statistics Agency (ZimStat), year-on-year food and non-alcoholic beverages inflation, prone to transitory shocks, stood at 126,43% while the non-food inflation rate was 85,94%.
On a month-on-month basis, the inflation rate in May was 7,02%, up 12,54% from the April rate of 5,52%.
“The month-on-month food and non-alcoholic beverages inflation rate stood at 17,63% in May 2019, gaining 9,78 percentage points on the April 2019 rate of 7,85%. The month-on-month non-food inflation rate stood at 10,12%, gaining 5,67 percentage points on the April 2019 rate of 4,45%,”Zimstat said in an update.
Authorities, however, maintain that by year-end the inflation rate will have been managed within a preferable range of less than 15%.
But chances of achieving that remain highly unlikely as retailers price goods and services in line with the parallel market rate for foreign currency, which remains highly inaccessible despite the introduction of an official interbank market in February.
Shortages of fuel and electricity are also adding to mounting pressures on the fragile southern African country’s economy which experienced a record inflation of 500 billion percent in 2008.
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What followed was a sustained period of negative inflation, with the country eventually slipping out of deflation in February 2017.
