Zimbabwe’s inflation soared to 74.5 percent during the month of June, accelerating by 58.8 percentage points on May inflation rate of 15.7 percent as authorities struggled with exchange rate pressures.
The Zimbabwe dollar lost over 30 percent of its value in June alone, putting prices in local currency under pressure despite USD inflation remaining relatively stable.
Zimbabwe adopted blending inflation early this year saying it was in line with realities on the ground, where the United States dollar has become the dominant currency complimented by the Zimbabwe dollar.
“This means that prices as measured by the all items CPI increased by an average of 74.5 percent from May 2023 to June 2023. The month-on-month inflation rate is given by the percentage change in the index of the relevant month of the current year compared with the index of the previous month in the current year,” said the Zimbabwe National Statistic Agency (Zimstat) in its latest inflation figures.
On an annualized basis, inflation has grown 175.8 percent.
The month-on-month Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages inflation rate was at 104.2 percent in June 2023, gaining 78.3 percentage points on the May 2023 rate of 25.9 percent.
The month-on month non-food inflation rate was 49.5 percent, gaining 41.1 percentage points on the May 2023 rate of 8.4 percent.
Government continues to blame businesses for “unjustly” raising prices in the market with businesses shifting blame on the government for failing to put policies which effectively stabilizes the exchange rate.
According to economic experts, the recent episode of the rapid Zimbabwe Dollar depreciation is being caused by excessive money supply into the economy by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe in meeting government expenditure.
Experts argue that the rate at which prices have been rising could be much higher than the blended inflation reported by Zimstat which “dilutes” the extent of inflation.
