Zim switches into official monthly deflation

Zimbabwe, for years plagued by hyper-inflation, has switched narrowly into an absolute price fall on a monthly basis, official data showed on Friday, following adoption of foreign currencies.

The central statistics office said that prices in November were 0,1% lower than in October when monthly prices had shown a rise of 0,8%.

The total disinflationary change from October to November is therefore 0,9 percentage points.

The office said that the main component of the fall was a decline in the rate at which food prices had been rising.

“The month-on-month inflation rate in November was -0,1%. shedding 0,9 percentage points on the October rate of 0,8%,” the CSO said.

“The month-on-month non-food inflation stood at 0,15%, shedding 1,12 percentage points on the October rate of 1,03%.”

Finance Minister Tendai Biti said that inflation for the whole year would not be more than 4%.

Since January, inflation has slowed rapidly after the country shelved use of the local currency and adopted various currencies such as the dollar, South African rand, British pound and Botswana pula.

The economy has been battered over the last decade, following President Robert Mugabe’s violence-plagued land reforms that decimated farming, the backbone of the economy.—Sapa-AFP