By BUUMBA CHIMBULU
The slowdown in the price of non-food items has led to the decline of annual inflation rate to 9.9 percent for May from 10.2 percent recorded previously, as Zambia records a trade deficit of about K500 million.
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On inflation, this means that on average, prices of goods and services increased by 9.9 percent between May 2022 and May 2023.
This development was mainly attributed to price movements of selected non-food items, says Zambia Statistics Agency (ZamStats) statistician general Mulenga Musepa.
“Of the overall 9.9 percent annual inflation, the food and non-alcoholic beverages group contributed 6.6 percentage points, while the non-food group accounted for 3.3 percent.
“Of the 3.3 percent, housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels contributed the highest at one percent followed by transport and clothing and footwear at 0.8 and 0.5 percentage points, respectively,” he told journalists in Lusaka yesterday.
Meanwhile, Zambia has recorded a deficit of about K500 million in April, 2023 from a deficit of K2.8 billion March, 2023.
Mr Musepa attributed the deficit to the decrease in exports mainly comprising domestically produced goods which dropped to 11.1 percent to K15.1 billion in April from K17 billion in March.
He said this was mainly on account of a 15.1 percent decrease in export earnings from intermediate goods.
Similarly, imports decreased by 21.3 percent to K 15.6 billion in April from K19.3 billion in March.
“This was mainly as a result of 48.3, 16.4, 24.6 and 8.3 percent decreases in import bills of raw materials, intermediate goods, consumer goods and capital goods, respectively,” Mr Musepa said.
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