Q FM Africa's Modern Radio
Zambia’s annual inflation rate for the month of September 2019 has risen to 10.5 percent from the 9.3 percent in August the same year.
Central Statistical Office(CSO) Interim Statistician General Mulenga Musepa has attributed the increase to food items price movements.
At a monthly bulletin briefing held in Lusaka Mr. Musepa has disclosed that from the 10.5 percent inflation rate, food and non alcoholic beverages, accounted for 6.6 percentage points.
Mr. Musepa states that non-food items accounted for 3.9 percentage points out of which transport contributed the highest of 1.3 percentage points.
He says transport was followed by clothing and footwear, and housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels that contributed 0.7 percentage points each.
The Interim Statistician General has also disclosed that Zambia’s trade deficit decreased by 42.5 percent from K786.2 million in July 2019 to K451.9 million in August 2019.
He notes that this means the Country imported more than it exported in nominal terms.