The Zimbabwe Statistics Agency has published the latest inflation figures and they confirm what we have been feeling as consumers. Prices have been rising with rising utility prices blowing wind into the sails of inflation. This was also made was by the fact that Zimbabwean businesses generally increase prices of hot-selling prices during the Christmas holidays.
According to ZIMSTAT:
Blended Consumer Price Index December 2020 The month on month inflation rate in December 2020 was 2.75 % gaining 0.50 percentage points on the November 2020 rate of 2.25 %.
Consumer Price Index December 2020 The month on month inflation rate in December 2020 was 4.22 % gaining 1.07 percentage points on the November 2020 rate of 3.15 %.
The year on year inflation rate (annual percentage change) for the month of December 2020 as measured by the all items CPI stood at 348.59 %. The CPI for the month ending December 2020 stood at 2 474.51 compared to 2, 374.24 in November 2020 and 551.63 in December 2019.
ZIMSTAT on Twitter
Even the blended inflation thingy-a-ma jig called blended inflation also registered a rise in month on month inflation. Blended inflation is obtained by taking into account the prices of goods in both USD and ZWL. The argument put forth by the powers be is that consumers are not using just one currency to make their purchases so inflation figures have to reflect this. A bizarre assertion if you ask me but they have persisted and we feel obliged to reproduce what they arrived at.
If prices were rising even in real (USD) terms it means they were going up even faster in ZWL terms although the effects would have been less felt this time around considering that rates had somewhat settled.
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