Inflation for the month of May has increased to 6.6 percent. Last month the Inflation rate was at 6.5 percent.
Central Statistics Office Director, JOHN KALUMBI said the increase in inflation is due to a rise in food prices for commodities like chicken, kapenta and vegetables.
He says food inflation which is the measure of how food prices have moved was recorded at 6 point 8 percent.
Mr Kalumbi however says the inflation rate for non-food products such as clothing, housing, water, electricity gas and other fuels decreased in the month of May.
The Bank of Zambia is this afternoon expected to announce the policy rate which is an indication of how lending rates will move in line with the inflation rate.
Meanwhile Zambia recorded 129 billion kwacha trade surplus for the month of April.
This represents an increase of 88 percent from the March Trade surplus which stood at 79.6 billion Kwacha.
This means that the country exported more in April than it imported from other countries.
Mr Kalumbi says major export products were from intermediate goods and raw materials which include copper cathodes and refined copper.
Zambia’s major export destination in April was Switzerland which accounted for 38 point 2 percent which accounted for 88 point 9 percent of copper cathodes.
While China was the second export destination and accounted for 17 point 9 percent and accounted for 86 percent of the total exports.
Meanwhile, Zambia’s 2011 copper output fell to 739,759 tonnes from 767,008 tonnes in the prior year, the Central Statistics Office said on Thursday.
Production of cobalt rose to 2,137 tonnes from 2,128 tonnes in 2010, the statistics office said.
ZNBC
Ba Zambia on the move! Praise the Lord!
u see we are selling more now. We shall even start selling Goats !!!
A trade surplus…how nice…hope it is sustained.
Please arrest the cause for the increase in prices of those very essential commodities. Issues of the stomach are too taxing on the well-being of an individual and the provider, especially that they cannot be ignored or removed from the budget.
If we are selling more it means more forex but why is the kwacha losing value.
Economics, only other place were good and bad reports can be a great thing. Shake my head but am loving this.
#4 arca, there must be a good reason for the kwacha losing value despite earning more forex. One that comes to mind is the cost of corruption…..surprised, you thought it was gone?…..no sir, just taken a more vicious twist with white collar crimes now taking the VIP stand…. remember the K14Billion DBZ debt? Those are some of the costs which depress the Kwacha.
Exporting more is only beneficial to a country is the money comes back. in our case the copper leaves Zambia but the sale proceeds do not come back. All you have is copper out and only a bit of money to pay workers and taxes to the govt.
So don’t rejoice that exports are up. 80% of Zambia’s exports is copper and other minerals. Find ways of getting more copper money in the pocket.
Director of Statistics changes every month just as inflation changes on a monthly basis.