“The year-on-year inflation rate for the month of April 2010, as measured by the all items consumer price index (CPI) stood at 4.8 percent, gaining 1.3 percentage points on the March 2010 rate of 3.5 percent,” the government data agency said.
“This means that prices as measured by the all items CPI increased by an average of 4.8 percent between April 2009 and April 2010.”
Last month, Finance Minister Tendai Biti accused business of unnecessarily hiking prices to stoke up inflation. Hyperinflation and the shortage of banknotes were the most visible signs of a severe economic crisis blamed on President Robert Mugabe’s policies and also seen in shortages of food and every essential commodity.
But the decision by the unity government of Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai to dump the Zimbabwe dollar for a basket of foreign currencies doused hyperinflation to allow the economy to register its first growth in a decade last year.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) last year grew by 5.1 percent compared to an earlier projection of 4.7 percent. However Biti as well as the International Monetary Fund have said the economy will grow at a slow rate this year because of a variety of reasons including uncertainty about the countrys political future that has kept away investors and foreign donors.
Post published in: Economy