Get 40% Off
🤯 This Tech Portfolio is up 29% YTD! Join Now to Get April’s Top PicksGet The Picks – Just 99 USD

Zimbabwe's Surging Inflation Is Set to Slow as State Acts

Published 16/03/2019, 01:41 am
Updated 16/03/2019, 08:13 am
© Bloomberg. A street vendor selling fresh fruit, vegetables and packaged food looks up from her mobile telephone in Harare, Zimbabwe, on Tuesday, July 31, 2018. Photographer: Waldo Swiegers/Bloomberg

© Bloomberg. A street vendor selling fresh fruit, vegetables and packaged food looks up from her mobile telephone in Harare, Zimbabwe, on Tuesday, July 31, 2018. Photographer: Waldo Swiegers/Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Zimbabwe’s February inflation rate surged to the highest annual level since hyperinflation more than a decade ago, but monthly consumer-price growth is slowing.

While annual inflation accelerated to 59.4 percent in February compared with 56.9 percent in January, prices grew 1.67 percent in the month, down from 10.8 percent in January, the Harare-based statistics agency said in a report Friday.

Government efforts to contain price increases are showing a “real manageable trend in month-on-month inflation,” Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube said Feb. 21. “With further implementation, ‘month-on-month’ inflation could even reach close to zero by year-end,” he said in an opinion article published in the state-controlled Herald Newspaper.

Still, the minister, a Cambridge University-trained economics professor, warned inflation is likely to remain at elevated levels until September, saying the step change in the annual rate was caused by “fiscal indiscipline and a high import bill relative to export receipts.”

On Friday, Ncube said measures introduced in a Transitional Stabilisation Programme unveiled in October were starting to bear fruit and inflation is expected to ease further.

Inflation in the southern African nation peaked at 500 billion percent in 2008, prompting the government to abandon its currency and adopt a system where the dollar is most commonly used. The central bank forecasts price growth of 10 percent to 15 percent by year-end, Governor John Mangudya said this week.

Zimbabweans are in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the hyperinflation era as they face shortages of food, fuel and foreign currency.

(Updates with comment by finance minister in fifth paragraph.)

© Bloomberg. A street vendor selling fresh fruit, vegetables and packaged food looks up from her mobile telephone in Harare, Zimbabwe, on Tuesday, July 31, 2018. Photographer: Waldo Swiegers/Bloomberg

Latest comments

Risk Disclosure: Trading in financial instruments and/or cryptocurrencies involves high risks including the risk of losing some, or all, of your investment amount, and may not be suitable for all investors. Prices of cryptocurrencies are extremely volatile and may be affected by external factors such as financial, regulatory or political events. Trading on margin increases the financial risks.
Before deciding to trade in financial instrument or cryptocurrencies you should be fully informed of the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, carefully consider your investment objectives, level of experience, and risk appetite, and seek professional advice where needed.
Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. The data and prices on the website are not necessarily provided by any market or exchange, but may be provided by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual price at any given market, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Fusion Media and any provider of the data contained in this website will not accept liability for any loss or damage as a result of your trading, or your reliance on the information contained within this website.
It is prohibited to use, store, reproduce, display, modify, transmit or distribute the data contained in this website without the explicit prior written permission of Fusion Media and/or the data provider. All intellectual property rights are reserved by the providers and/or the exchange providing the data contained in this website.
Fusion Media may be compensated by the advertisers that appear on the website, based on your interaction with the advertisements or advertisers.
© 2007-2024 - Fusion Media Limited. All Rights Reserved.