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ZIMBABWE’S Consumption Poverty Line for one person for March this year edged up to ZWL1 million while the food poverty line (FPL) shot to over ZWL700 000, official statistics show.

The National Statistics Agency (ZimStat) released the Poverty Datum Line figures for this month on Wednesday showing that the CPL, the figure that a single individual required to purchase both non-food and food items in order not to be deemed poor, stood at ZWL916 225. 50, a 65.8 percent increase on the February figure of ZWL552 745.80.

The FPL stood at ZWL701 236. 89, a 62.2 percent jump on the February figure of ZWL432 454. 90. The CPL is the minimum requirements basket cost for one person to afford daily minimum energy intake of 2 100 calories.

Meanwhile, the month-on-month inflation rate for March was 4.9 percent, the average by which prices measured by the all-items consumer price index (CPI) increased. This figure is 0.5 percentage points lower than the February rate of 5.4 percent with the CPI being 133.39 in March compared to 127.17 in February. In March 2023, the index stood at 85.87.

The producer price index (PPI) excluding Agriculture stood at 167.77 in February, up from 154.23 in January 2024. The month-on-month rate of change in February was 8.8 percent having shed 11.2 percent on the January rate of 20 percent.

ZimStat attributed the increase of the index on the manufacture of food products, mining and quarrying, chemicals and chemical products, metal products, beverages and tobacco, basic metals, textiles and other non-metallic mineral products.

Categories that remained constant were manufacture of paper and paper products, wood and products of wood and cork.

-New Ziana