Zimbabwe will defer publication of year-on-year inflation until February next year, Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube told Parliament on Thursday.
Ncube said the change in currency regime from multi-currency to the Zimbabwe dollar had impacted on the base for calculation of CPI indices and, hence, inflation.
Zimbabwe’s inflation was last recorded at 176% for the month of June, the highest in ten years.
“Given this transition, Zimstat will defer publication of year-on-year inflation while building up data of prices in mono-currency for a period of 12 months to February 2020,” said Ncube.
“This will ensure that we compare like with like in terms of currency regimes.”
He said a similar decision was made in 2009 after the change of currency regime, whereby Zimstat resorted to only gazetting month-on-month inflation.
“Year-on-year inflation publication will therefore resume after February 2020, alongside with month-on-month inflation publication.”
In the interim, stakeholders are encouraged to focus more on month-on-month inflation as barometer for price developments, said Ncube.
