People queue up in front of Agribank to draw money in Harare, April 3, 2008. (Xinhua/Liu Xin)
Zimbabwe's year-on-year inflation dipped slightly to 17.8 percent in October, down from the 18.4 percent recorded in the previous month, the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZIMSTAT) said Thursday.
HARARE, Oct. 27 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwe's year-on-year inflation dipped slightly to 17.8 percent in October, down from the 18.4 percent recorded in the previous month, the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZIMSTAT) said Thursday.
However, month-on-month inflation accelerated to 2.5 percent from 1.0 percent the previous month, according to ZIMSTAT.
"In October 2023, the Consumer Price Index for housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels made the highest contribution at 1.4 percent, followed by food and non-alcoholic beverages with a contribution of 0.8 percent," ZIMSTAT said.
Traffic is seen in front of banking halls in Harare, Zimbabwe, Feb. 23, 2023. (Photo by Tafara Mugwara/Xinhua)
Zimbabwe's typically high annual inflation figure saw a significant decline last month. This decline occurred after the statistics agency adopted a geometric aggregation method for computing weighted price indices, replacing the previously used arithmetic aggregation. This method resulted in a decrease in yearly inflation from 77.2 percent in August to 18.4 percent in September.
Thomas Chikadaya, the manager for price statistics at ZIMSTAT, said that the geometric aggregation method led to reduced weighted inflation rates, resulting in a significant drop in annual inflation. ■
