Zimbabwe inflation drops by only 6 percentage points

Zimbabwe’s annual inflation dropped by only 6 percentage points from 56.37% in July to 50.24% this month.

Month-on-month inflation, however, went up by 1.68 percentage points from 2.56% in July to 4.18% this month.

United States economist, Steve Hanke who uses the black market to calculate inflation, put Zimbabwe’s inflation today at 66.37%.

Zimbabwe’s inflation has been going down from July last year, a month after the country introduced the foreign currency auction system which has stabilised the local currency.

Legislators yesterday expressed concern at the rising black market rate as it is the one business is using for pricing including those businesses that are getting foreign currency from the black market.

One legislator said the local currency was trading at $166 to the United States dollar almost double the ruling auction rate of $85.91.

Zimbabwe has said that it will use more than half of the US$961 million that it has received from the International Monetary Fund this week to prop up the local currency.

Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube said he did not see therefore why the exchange rate of the local currency should continue to fall.

The Zimbabwe dollar opened the year at $82.09 and was down to $85.91 on Tuesday.

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