The year- on- year (annual) inflation rate as measured by the all items Consumer Price Index (CPI) for April 2020 has increased to 15.7%, up from 14% recorded in March 2020.
This means that on average, prices of goods and services have generally increased by 15.7% between April 2019 and April 2020.
Zambia Statistics Agency – ZSA Interim Statistician General Mulenga Musepa has disclosed that the increase in the annual rate of inflation was attributed to price increases in both food and non-food items.
Streaming live and monitored by the Zambian Business Times-ZBT on April 30,2020, Mulenga said the year on year food inflation rate for April 2020 was recorded at 17.% compared to 15.2% recorded in March 2020, hence indicating an increase of 1.8 percentage points.
He attributed the development to increases in prices of food items such as Dried bream, Dried kapenta, Cooking oil, Live Chicken and Sugar.
Mulenga also mentioned that the the year on year non-food inflation for April 2020 was recorded at 14.2% compared to 12.7% recorded in March 2020 and has attributed the increase to the prices of items such as vehicles, solid fuels (i.e Charcoal and Firewood), furnishing and household appliances.
Meanwhile, a disaggregation of the annual inflation rate by provinces shows that annual inflation rate for April 2020 increased for all the nine provinces with Lusaka province recording the highest rate of annual inflation at 18.1%.
“However Western province recorded the lowest annual rate of inflation at 11.5%,” He added.
Analyst have indicated that Zambia’s inflation number has come under pressure through imported inflation due to the depreciation of the Kwacha as well as effects of #covid 19 which has generally reduced business activities.
