Zambia’s inflation slowed to its lowest rate in at least 10 years this month, to 6.0 percent year-on-year from 6.4 percent in January mainly due to food costs, the Central Statistics Office said on Thursday.
Zambia’s inflation has been on a declining trend and February’s rate marks the lowest since at least January 2002, according to all the available data on the CSO website.
“The reduction is mainly attributed to reductions in food and non-alcoholic beverages,” the CSO said in a statement.
Food has the heaviest weighting in the inflation basket and a bumper maize crop has led to lower prices of the staple in the southern Africa country.
An analyst said it will be a challenge to keep inflation at current rates.
“Higher electricity price will push the cost for services up and labour unions are already demanding higher wages,” David Punabantu, an analyst at the Economics Association of Zambia.
A Reuters poll on Wednesday showed Zambia’s inflation could rise over the next month but stay in single digits and average 7.2 percent this year.
The CSO also said Zambia’s trade account recorded a surplus of 269.3 billion kwacha ($51.39 million) in January compared with a 475.9 billion kwacha surplus in December 2011.
[Reuters]
Since the PF does not believe in statistics and figures,this information is irrelevant.However i want to wait for the inflation figure in May.
Just figures…………
….and what prices have gone down???? None so shut up and stop lying!
Can we debate this figure without words like PF, MMD, Kaponya. We are talking about inflation, CSO and food process.
I meant food prices
This is good for Zambia.
Now all those prophets of doom who are actually just bitter from losing elections in September 2011 are in denial of these statitics. You can hang on to your bitterness. Zambia is on its way.
Positive development indeed!
Now that we have hit the status of lower middle income country we need to revise the methodolgy by which we measure inflation. Before it made sense to have food (the most basic of neccessities) to have the weighting that it has. Now the formula should place more emphasis on non food items so that we track inflation more appropriately and in line with recent expenditure trends and patterns. I agree the challenge will be to keep inflation below 7% in view of the increasing energy costs.
i agree with you,demand pull inflation,cost push inflation need to agrreaget these,not just food infllation
The effects of policy on the economy take at least a year to show up. What we are seeing now is policy effects from the previous government. Come January 2013 we will have PF effects kicking in. If the PF changes the MMD course, we are in for high jump. So far, the PF has already set the ball rolling for pro-inflation changes – more money in your pockets – without increasing production will obviously raise inflation. By 2016, unless something happens, this present captain of the ship will run us aground on some high inflation island!
So Mr Saint #9 you can not debate economics without using the words PF and MMD?
This is good for our country, but for this to benefit the people we need clear policy guidelines and implementation plans followed with effect monitoring by various govt departments. However, the current leadership is too deep involved in non starter things (nepotism, regionism and tribalism, appointing and disappointing name it) and this will soon be history unless there is shift in priority setting by the current executive in power.
CSO should re-compute previous infaltion figures and then do a comparison. You do not compare results using different methods especially when you want to see the trend. CSO is behaving unscientific. Can CSO tell us how many jobs have been created since the brginning of the year. This is more important as low inflation without jobs does not put more money into the majoirty zambians’ pockets.
Spot on! Only recently they changed the formula. Last month, from what they hav ebeen using for years.
Inflation is the rate at which prices increase. So if they were increasing at 20% they are now increasing at a lower rate of 6%. This is different from the reduction in prices. Just like if you were running then you start walking it does not mean that you have stopped moving, you are now moving at a slower rate. In Physics there is accelaration and retardation.
Thus, the rate at which prices increase in Zambia is now at 6% a very small rate.
walasa
THE CEILING OF THIS SHOP IS TOO LOW FOR HEALTHY AND SAFETY COMPLIANCE. WHEN IT CATCHES FIRE NO ONE CAN SURVIVE IN THAT SHOP.
Good observation, @kci. That is why we don’t even understand what factors lead to economic outlook in the country; we always think it has to be solely a party thing. What is intriguing is that we fail to lead from our experiences in the diaspora (if Saint is indeed in the beleaguered EU)…
This is positive news.Â
anything good is attributed to the previous thieving govt. while anything bad is sata’s. at least signs of pf ruling this country are slowly showing. as for these bitter losers, they have no interest of zambians at heart all they want is power. to achieve their go, they will negate anything this govt. do. dont be suprised if they start an impeachment process very soon. thieves are afraid, very afraid of sata.
As much as i want to welcome this news, i think it is not sustainable or figures are played around with. I may probably need my learned colleagues to correct my thinking on this. How can this be when; (1) At least 60% of Zambia’s finished products apart from Maize are imported and we have seen unprecedented weakening of the Kwacha against the major currencies?
(2) Trading on the Lusaka stock market has slowed in the last few months (3) With point 2, the investments in has also slowed down showing nervousness and lack of confidence in our economy. (4) Direct existing foreign investors already in the country are freezing expansion programmes and capital expenditures until the is a confidence boost in the economy.
Surely these indicators point towards high levels of inflation? Explain!
Good, Gooder Goodest Ba DONT KUBEBA. KEEP THE BOAT FLOATING. HH NO MAWU, HE IS MAULESS.
MMD cadres will always wish bad for Zambia, they even sometimes forget that they are also Zambians. This is how greed & evil minds they learnt from MMD has done to them. They will live miserable because at the pace we are moving and crackdown on corruption. Our Economy will improve. Well done PF.
Let them walk away; these are leaders under MMD that were in power for 20years. They brought Zambia backward. Very foo.lish. It is not a new ministry, but two deputy ministers under defense to help with rural development. MMD NEVER WANT ZAMBIA TO MOVE FORWARD SO THAT THEY CONDEMN SATA. We know there tricks. Very Dirty minded people. Let us make it clear that there is no New Ministry. But additional resource to deliver services better you dull fo.ols.
Easy people. Have you forgotten that CSO recently changed the method of calculating inflation. They are comparing oranges with apples. They are not the same baby.
Can any one explain how that has in the past 10 yrs translated in people’s cost of living. Also why has zesco been given a greenlight by ERB to increase electricity tarrifs in the near future? why has the kwacha depreciated so rapidly ? Do not hide on the issue of saying its a trend in major currencies around the globe neither should recession be an excuse. Should some one kindly explain which prices of our major consumer goods have been reduced. The price of fuel was reduced at the directive of govt and not market forces. Some one would be naive to call the drop in inflation rate as positive development if he does not give satisfactory answers on the questions raised here
Dont worry you MMD and UPND, HH sycophants, this is just the begging for a better Zambia. You are yet to see more positive economic trends.Â
Inflation in reality shall be affected by the basics. Food, water and shelter. Now moving on, 6.0 % is a good number. What needs to be done is for the civil servants at ministry of finance and the commerce ones to educate the general public on the basic meaning of economics and value of proper spending. In most African nations the break in information flow between the government and citizens is why economies dwindle. Government should also educate Rich Zambians that they too can re-invest in the nation by being entrepreneurs and not putting non-qualified relatives in high office position because this is the downfall of many a business in Africa.
this is good new. hope we can maintain this level. but more importantly i hope we can now respect statistics from CSO the same one we were rejecting 6months ago.
“Food has the heaviest weighting in the inflation basket and a bumper maize crop has led to lower prices of the staple in the southern Africa country”. Before one Emmanuel Chenda etc takes the credit, let me pre-empty them by thanking RB for his great economic legacy!
Well spoken King Deceit.Credit should indeed go to RB for his great economic legacy.The fact is PF is yet to deliver a crop harvest.I hope it will be a bumper harvest like that delivered under the RB regime.LETS ENCOURAGE PF TO ADOT STRATEGIES THAT WILL SUSTAIN the achievements gained under MMD.Its not true that all that MMD did while in office is bad.Lets acknowledge their good side so that we can build on it.
I THOUGHT PF DO NOT BELEIVE IN THESE FIGURES. they kept rejecting them under RB, SO TODAY THEY ARE PRAISING THE FIGURES. SHAME