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Dr Mangudya

Business Reporter
THE country’s year-on-year inflation figures for April gained 0.27 percentage points to 0.48 percent, official data from the                                            Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (Zimstat) show.

Month-on-month inflation gained 0.02 percentage points on the March rate of 0.03 percentage points to 0.05 percentage points.

This means that Zimbabwe slowly continues to drift from the deflationary mode.

“The year-on-year inflation rate for the month of April 2017 as measured by the all items Consumer Price Index stood at 0.48 percent, gaining 0.27 percentage points on the March 2017 rate of 0.21 percent.

“This means that prices as measured by the all items CPI increased by an average of 0.48 percentage points between April 2016 and April 2017,” said the agency.

Zimstat said the year-on-year food and non alcoholic beverages inflation prone to transitory shocks stood at 1.35 percent while the non-food inflation rate was 0.08 percent.

Zimbabwe moved out of deflation in February for the first time in three years having been in that position largely due to competition from cheap imports, the international oil price slump as well as low disposable income.

Zimbabwe has been in a deflationary mode since September 2014.

In the 2017 monetary policy statement, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Dr John Mangudya projected that on the outlook inflation was expected to move into positive territory for the first time this year.

He attributed this to the anticipated increase in international oil prices and domestic sector recovery.

Dr Mangudya said there were strong indications that oil supply would fall on the global market following the agreement by oil producing nations to cut production in 2017.

As a result, this positive trajectory was expected to be cemented by the general recovery of the economy in 2017 on account of the expected strong agricultural outturn envisaged to increase disposable income.