Zimbabwe’s Annual Inflation Falls Sharply After Change in Computing Methodology

By Xinhua 

September 29, 2023

Zimbabwe’s annual inflation rate in September fell sharply to 18.4 percent from 77.2 percent the previous month, Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZIMSTAT) said Thursday.

ZIMSTAT attributed the sharp decline to its migration from arithmetic aggregation to geometric aggregation method in computing the weighted price indices with effect from this month.

“The significant drop in the year-on-year inflation to 18.4 percent was caused by the change in the methodology. Previously we have been using arithmetic aggregation but now we are using geometric aggregation, which has resulted in a decline of weighted inflation rates,” said Thomas Chikadaya, the manager for price statistics, while presetting the inflation data.

He said monthly inflation in September rose by 2.3 percentage points to 1.0 percent from minus 1.3 percent in August. The major drivers of monthly inflation in September were high costs of food and non-alcoholic beverages, education and communication.