Nevanji Munyaradzi Chiondegwa
Zimbabwe’s year on year inflation for June 2021 has dropped from 161.9% to 106.6%, shedding off 55.3 percentage points.
The official inflation figure is 44.6% points higher than that of America Economist and John Hopkins Professor, Professor Steve Hanke who has the Zimbabwean inflation rate at 62%.
Prof Hanke claims his figures are more accurate and that he uses real live events.
It must be understood that, it is his figures that Harare East parliamentary representative Tendai Biti of the MDC Alliance used to use to predict the downfall of the Zimbabwean economy.
Biti religiously used Hanke’s figures which initially where higher than than official figures to attack Professor Mthuli Ncube, the Minister of Finance and Economic Development’s policies.
He only stopped doing so when Prof Hanke’s figures dropped lower than the official statistics figures.
The country’s month on month inflation rose to 3.9% in June compared to 2.5% for May 2021 gaining 1.4 percentage points. This means that prices of goods and services for the month of June rose at 1.4 percentage points higher than they did in May.
The cause may be higher cash in consumers’ hands given the ongoing tobacco auctions and the grain deliveries and payments to farmers.
Meanwhile, South Africa remains our biggest trading partner with 39.7% exports and 45% imports. Surprisingly the country import 15.7% of our goods and services from Singapore and only 9.2% from China. Zimbabwe receives 7.1% of imports from India. We export 25% of our goods to the United Arab Emirates and 8.2% to Mozambique.
Major exports are semi manufactured gold at 23.2%, Nickel mattes including PGMs at 22.8%, Nickel ores and concentrates (PGMs) at 21.9%. Tobacco contributes 9.1% to the export figures and along with Cotton at 0.4% are the only Agricultural commodities on the list. Ferrochromium, Platinum unwrought and Industrial diamonds contribute 5.4%, 4.7% and 2.0% respectively.
On the imports side, machinery and equipment(16.3%), mineral fuels(10.6%), Vehicles(7.3%),Electrical machinery and equipment(5.5%) cereals ( maize, rice and wheat)(5.3%) along with pharmaceutical products(5.2%) top the list.
Zimbabwe surprisingly import a high number of plastics with 4.7% of imports being plastic products. Edible fats such as crude soya bean oils are at 3.4% and Iron and Steel sits at 3.8% whilst articles of iron and steel are at 3.6%.
Ostensibly, if the country prioritizes production, research and development and re-engineering, we can shed off 28.1% off our imports bill.
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