“The parallel market exchange rate has not only stabilized but came down from $900:US$1 to the current average of $650:US$1. Consequently, prices of basic commodities came down with cooking oil price reducing from an average of US$56 per box to the current average of US$50 per box,” Mutashu said.
He, however, expressed concern that sugar prices continued to go up in local currency from an average of $609 000 per tonne last week to $709 000 per tonne on Monday this week.
“Business should ensure the consumers benefit from the current stability through responsible pricing,” he said.
Also, to arrest further depreciation of the Zimbabwean dollar, the government has taken steps to review its procurement approach to minimise the practice of forward exchange rate pricing that was being pursued by its suppliers of goods and services.
Mangudya is also upbeat about the monthly inflation outlook, noting that the policy measures they have announced so far have begun to tame inflation.
“As a result of the measures, month-on-month inflation, which had increased to 30.7 percent in June 2022, decelerated to 25.6 percent in July 2022. The exchange rate has also largely stabilised during the month of July 2022 following the implementation of the tight monetary policy measures,” he said.
Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube said the fiscal side was working very hard to curb speculative activities.
“There is a lot that we are doing and we have made sure that either we are tackling domestic factors or acting on external factors and those together have gone a long way in stabilising inflation and the exchange rate,” he said. –Xinhua
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