Zimbabwe April inflation lowest in nearly two years

Zimbabwe’s inflation for April which was put at 194.1% is the lowest in nearly two years since inflation began to surge after the country re-introduced its own currency.

Zimbabwe started weaning off its local currency from the United States in October 2018 when Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube separated United States dollar accounts from Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) ones and inflation which had been below 6% percent when President Emmerson Mnangagwa took over from President Robert Mugabe began to surge.

It had reached 230.4% by July 2019 when Zimbabwe re-introduced its own currency and peaked at 837.5% a year later.

Zimbabwe says inflation will be below 10% by the end of the year.

It is banking on the foreign exchange currency auction which has stabilised the local currency which is now trading at $84 to the United States dollar.

Inflation has so far declined from 362.6% in January to 321.6% in February and 240.6% in March.

Month-on-month inflation dropped from 5.4% in January to 1.6% this month.

A decline in inflation does not necessarily mean that prices are dropping. It just means that the level of increase of the prices is declining.

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