Zim inflation rate dips below 450%

Zimbabwe's inflation rate dips below 450%

GONO: Wants inflation below 200pc by December

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• Chiyangwa arrested

By Agencies

ZIMBABWE'S annual inflation rate slowed slightly to 448.8 percent in May from 505 percent the previous month, officials figures showed at the weekend.

Despite the drop in the rate cited by the state news agency ZIANA, inflation in Zimbabwe remains among the highest in the world.

Zimbabwe's inflation peaked in November last year to hit 619.5 percent having leapt some 94 percentage points from the previous month making it the single largest jump since the economy began its slide some three years ago.

The government in November last year predicted that the southern African country's inflation rate would hit 700 percent in the first three months of this year before climbing down.

But the central bank chief Gideon Gono, in a five-year monetary policy statement released six months ago and aimed at pulling the economy back from the brink, vowed that the rate would drop to below 200 percent by December.

Zimbabwe has in recent years been in the throes of political, economic and social instability.

Average annual inflation has been on a upward trend since 2000 when it stood at 55.9 percent, rising to 71 percent a year later. Two years later it had surpassed 600 percent.

The country has also been plagued by severe food shortages, caused partly by drought as well as the controversial land redistribution programme dispossessing white farmers.

Government has this year said it has enough food to feed its people, but early this month a state-owned grain marketer was quoted in the media as saying that Zimbabwe was importing food.
AFP
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