Zambia’s inflation rate has continued to reduce with the month of September recording 7.7 per cent, the lowest inflation rate in five years. The Central Statistical Office (CSO) has announced a 7. 7 Per cent annual rate of inflation for the month of September.
This is against the August inflation rate of 8.2 percent. CSO Acting Director John Kalumbi attributed the decline in inflation to the reduction in the price of food and non food items.
Mr Kalumbi said, other factors included the cost of beverages, clothing, footwear, furniture and medical care. He was speaking during a CSO monthly bulletin in Lusaka Thursday.
And Mr Kalumbi said the country has also recorded a marginal decline in the annual food inflation. He said September recorded 2.8 per cent from 2. 9 recorded in August.
ZNBC
Well done. More good news about the economy. Guess will just have to wait for the ritualistic rantings about ‘you cant eat inflation’, blah, blah, from the usual suspects.
Nice job BoZ, that is great news. i just hope the labor market to adjust more quickly in a downturn to reduce liquidity traps to prevent any rise in inflation and continue stabilizing the economy. This is good for Zambia
Yaba!!!.And the opposition are still bickering who will be the Pact president.Kalusa was right when he challenged them(pact leaders) to tell the grassroot what they have in stock cos RB is delivering to the people.
Good evening
I’m not that easily convinced by figures, but to hear about the decline in food prices makes me glad. On the other hand, the mere thought of a country with some of the world’s largest copper reserves struggling to feed a dozen million people is simply unbearable to me.
Just compare how China and India – both countries with far less natural resources than Zambia manage to feed ten times our population with surplus products. That’s not just a difference, that’s a Luangwa Valley sized chasm.
Even the detractors who have been planted on LT and paid to spread despondency in Zambia are retreating and recoiling at the overwhelming facts confronting them. You will easily know them, they spread falsehoods, they have no facts, they claim to know what they are ignorant about (Kalos2121 is prominent at this), they are paid to spread rumours that other bloggers have been paid. Fortunately they are an endangered species and fast disappearing from LT, thanks to relentless progressives who have fought a hard battle armed with facts, please don’t relax until the last one is put down.
This is great news. Now we await the PF/Mmembe planted bloggers to come spread misinformation.
#4 Dont forget that both India and China still have high levels of poverty. Some slums in India have bigger populations than Lusaka. Most of the world’s poorest people are actually found in South Asia. We have recorded a bumper harvest this year which means that most people have enough to eat. In the urban areas the price of mealie meal has fallen which means that people do really have more money in their pockets. There is still a lot that needs to be done but we should celebrate the successes we have so far achieved.
Indeed ignorance is bliss!
Celebrate an achievement called inflation?
You gotta be one low expectation ng’wang’wazi to think a slight drop in inflation in a country that imports everything from a presidential jet to a toothpick is a landmark achievement. You are disgracing yourselves.
Little knowledge is dangerous, and Zambia seems to be running on E.
Pleeeeeeeeeeeez!
# 5, I hope these inflation figures you seem to be excited about will bring the doctors back to work. Next to go strike are teachers who are now paid from the leftovers of RB’s trips.
Now let me educate you on how central banks operate, inflation targeting is often associated with changes in the central bank laws that enhances the independence of the institution. In practice, while few central banks reach the “ideal” of being “full fledged” inflation-targeting institutions, many nonetheless focus on fighting inflation to the virtual exclusion of other goals. Zambia is one. Ironically, employment creation is dropped off the immediate agenda of most central banks like BOZ just as the problems of unemployment, underemployment and poverty are never discussed in these reports.
A shift away from inflation targeting and towards a more balanced approach is more feasible and desirable. Furthermore, to contribute to the task of designing a more socially desirable macroeconomic policy environment, The government in conjunction with other stakeholders should offer viable alternatives to inflation targeting in order to promote employment, sustained growth, and improved income distribution.
Now if this does not sink in your small brain, try to read Arjun Jayadev reports on survey results asking people in different countries and income levels what their bigger concern is: high inflation or high unemployment? His main result is that poorer people are concerned more about high unemployment than high inflation, while richer respondents have the opposite preferences.
The difference between you and me is that you read the Times of Zambia, Daily Mail and other MMD tutored reports. I read peer reviewed articles, researched and have solutions. Calling a paid blogger does not only show your pettiness and how you are open like a cup which accepts anything and everything, but also how you have failed to learn to question those in authority even when you know they are lying and failing to deliver. Probably you have to learn how the word opposition came into being and the objectives of those in opposition. Probably you have to ask why Arsenal or Chelsea is not the only team in the English League. The way they will improve is when they know there’s another team in the hunt for the title.
Lastly, you don’t even know who I am. And for sure you will never.
These policy proposals in broad outlines should be similar to those suggested by Epstein (2008) for the case of South Africa. In 2006 researchers developed an “employment-targeted economic program” designed to accomplish this goal, with a focus on monetary policy, credit policy, capital management techniques, fiscal policy and industrial policy. Please tell us what you know to be the Zambian policy. The purpose of the program should be to reduce the unemployment rate by half. Not duping dopes like you that they are solving problems while the unemployment lines are growing larger. What do you expect about inflation in a nation where 90% of the population is not in formal employment and other countries have turned you into a dumping place for their goods?
9, 10, 11, 12 Kalos2121 – Phew, boy, are you learned! But how come with all your learning and wide reading, you have disputed the building of new hospitals (and maybe even schools) that have been built so far when all that you need to do is see without even reading? And if you are an opposition PF sympathiser, I am impressed that there is such calibre of academics, but with all that knowledge how come you cannot see that Mr Sata cannot provide alternative leadership for this country? How would he understand the theories that you are propounding? Oh, what a waste of talent!
#13 H.H. Sata, my contributions to this blog are not about Sata, HH, Milupi or any other opposition leader. It is about the plight of the people of Zambia and how RB has mismanaged the vast resources through his childish and an planned trips. Zambia has more potential than any other country in the region and can be a key player in Southern African regional economy, but what do we see? High levels of poverty, high levels of unemployment and very poor decisions with regard to who should own the vast resources that we have. In 1991, we went through a phase and due to lack of vision as a nation, today we find ourselves as a nation heavily dependent on foreign investment. What if that investment goes? What next? We are supposed to empower our locals with small business.