The annual inflation rate for August 2022 has decreased to 9.8% from 9.9%% recorded in July 2022 which means on average, prices of goods and services increased by 9.8% between August 2021 and August 2022.
Zambia Statistics Agency (ZamStats) Interim Statistician General Mulenga Musepa said the slowdown in annual inflation was mainly attributed to price movements in food items adding that the annual food inflation for August 2022 reduced to 11.3% from 12% in July 2022.
According to information made available to the Zambian Business Times-ZBT, Musepa added that the reduction is mainly due to price movements in food items such as meats (brisket, mixed cut, T-bone, beef sausage, mincemeat, Ox-liver, chicken liver), fruits (oranges, lemons, bananas, apples, water melons, pineapples, avocadoes), rice local and eggs.
Musepa noted that Lusaka province contributed the highest at 2.7 percentage points and Copperbelt province contributed 2.3 percentage points to the overall annual inflation of 9.8% in August 2022. Northwestern, Eastern, Luapula and Western provinces had the lowest contributions of 0.4 and 0.5 percentage points respectively.
He also explained that the cumulative total trade for the period January to July 2022 decreased by 4.8%, from K215.0 billion to K204.7 billion in 2021 for the same period while the country recorded a trade surplus of K3.7 billion in July 2022 compared to a surplus of K2.1 billion in June 2022 indicating a 73.0% increase in the surplus.
The Interim Statistician General mentioned that exports mainly comprising domestically produced goods decreased by 1.7% to K15.9 billion in July 2022 from K16.2 billion in June 2022 mainly on account of a 3.5% decrease in export earnings from intermediate goods.
Musepa said imports decreased by 13.1% to K12.2 billion in July 2022 from K14.1 billion in June 2022 and this was mainly because of decreases in import bills of consumer goods, capital goods and intermediate goods of 25.2, 22.5 and 7.1% respectively.
He added that traditional export earnings decreased by 5.7% to K10.8 billion in July 2022 from K11.4 billion in June 2022 and accounted for 67.7% of total export earnings in July 2022 while nontraditional exports earnings increased by 7.9% to K5.1 billion in July 2022 from K4.8 billion in June 2022 and accounted for 32.3% of total export earnings in July 2022.
