Zambia’s annual inflation rate for March, 2021 increased to 22.8%, up from 22.2% recorded in February, 2021 mainly due to increases in consumer goods prices. A deeper review shows that meat, cooking oil and sugar price increases are among the key contributors.
Zambia Statistics Agency interim statistician General Mulenga Musepa stated during the monthly bulleting presentation on Thursday 25 March 2021 attended by the Zambian Business Times – ZBT that the annual food inflation rate for March, 2021 was recorded at 22.8 percent compared to 22.3 percent recorded in February 2021, representing an increase of 0.5 percentage points.
Among the most essential foodstuffs, Cooking oil recorded the second highest year on year inflation rate of 61.67 percent after millet surprisingly hit a record high year on year inflation rate of 69.81 percent.
Meat products such as T-bone, mixed cut, rump steak, fillet, chicken live and brisket year on year inflation was recorded at 50.32, 50.09,43.65,39.06, 37.12 and 45.93 percent respectively.
On the other hand, Year on year increase in prices for eggs was recorded at 47.83 percent while sugar recorded a 35 percent year on year price increase. Dried kapenta Mpulungu and dried kapenta Siavonga’s inflation rate was paged at 30.54 percent and 32.54 percent respectively.
The annual non-food inflation rate for March 2021 was recorded at 17.0 percent from 16.2 percent in February 2021. The increase in non-food inflation rate was mainly attributed to price increases garments, rentals, charcoal, gas, washing soap, domestic services.
The monthly food inflation rate for March, 2021 was recorded at 1.6 percent, a decrease of 1.1 percentage points from 2.7 percent recorded in February, 2021.
This development was mainly attributed to the decrease in the inflation of food items such as cereals, fish, pineapples, avocados and tomatoes.
Non-Food inflation rate for March, 2021 was recorded at 1.9 percent, indicating a decrease of 0.4 percentage points from the 2.3 percent recorded in February, 2021. This development was mainly attributed to price movements of Non-food items such as Household Textiles.
The annual inflation rate by province shows that the annual inflation rate for March, 2021 decreased for Northern, North-Western and Western province while it increased for the rest of the provinces.
Provincial changes in annual inflation rate show that between March, 2020 and March 2021, Northern Province had the highest annual inflation rate at 35.8 percent, followed by Central Province at 28.8 percent.
