HARARE – Zimbabwe’s year-on-year inflation rate for November has risen to 31.01 percent, gaining 10.16 percentage points from the October rate, which stood at 20.85 percent, according to the country’s statistics agency, Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZimStat) said on Monday.
The consumer price index (CPI) for the month ending November 2018 stood at 129.65 percent compared with 118.73 percent in October 2018 and 98.97 percent in November 2017.
This means that prices increased by an average of almost a third between November 2017 and November 2018.
“The rise in annual inflation rate for October was driven by mainly food inflation, which carries a 31.98 percent weight on the total CPI basket. The year-on-year food and non-alcoholic beverages inflation prone to transitory shocks stood at 42.71 percent against 26.8 percent in October 2018,” ZimStat said in its report Monday.
“However, the month-on-month food and non-alcoholic beverages inflation rate stood at 14.53 percent in November 2018, dropping 5.59 percentage points on the October 2018 rate of 20.12 percent.”
Oils and fats (58.02 percent), bread and cereal (37.88 percent) and meat (57.61 percent) are some of the food items whose inflation increased.
Other significant increases were vegetables (32.80 percent), fruits (35.52 percent) and milk, cheese and eggs (35 percent).
The transport services also had a surge, accounting for 9.8 percent of the total CPI basket, which rose to 22 percent in October 2018 from 19.6 percent recorded in October 2018.
“(Motor) spares and accessories were up at 51.7 percent, while fuel and lubricants surged by 6,83 percent. On health, pharmaceutical products surged by 75.84 percent,” ZimStat said.
“For clothing and footwear, clothing material prices went up by 109.25 percent. For non-alcoholic beverages, mineral waters and soft drinks rose by 29.83 percent in November, while alcoholic beverages were up to 21.41 percent.”