By Alois Vinga

ZIMBABWE’s annual inflation rate has maintained an upward trend increasing by 80% from the 97.85% recorded in the month of June 2019 to hit 175.5%, recent Zimbabwe National Statistical Agency data has shown.

Measured on a yearly basis in line with the newly adopted calculation method, Consumer Price Index (CPI), an increase to 175.6% was recorded for June 2019 up from May 2019.

“This means that prices as measured by the all items CPI increased by an average of 175.66 percent between June 2018 and June 2019,” the statistics agency said.

The increase was driven by a sharp spike in prices of basic commodities as the retail sector responded to the fluctuations in exchange rates between the US$ and the Zim-dollar on the parallel market.

However, government has since introduced the Zim-dollar and moved to scrap the multi-currency system blamed for significantly contributing to market instabilities.

Zimstats noted that the year-on-year food and non-alcoholic beverages inflation stood at 252% and the non-food inflation rate was lower at 144%.

The CPI for the month ending June 2019 stood at 173 % compared to 124% in May 2019 and 63% in June 2018.

The stats revealed that month on month inflation rate in June 2019 was 39% an increase of 27 percentage points on the May 2019 rate of 13 %.

“Prices as measured by the all items CPI increased by an average rate of 39% from May 2019 to June 2019,” ZimStats indicated.

Notably, on a month on month basis, food and non- alcoholic beverages inflation rate stood at 55% in June 2019, gaining 37% percentage points on the May 2019 rate which stood at 18%.

On the same scale the non-food inflation rate stood at 31%, gaining 21% points according to Zimstats.