By Brian Latham
Zimbabwe's inflation soared to 14,841 percent last month as food and fuel shortages deepened a crisis in the world's fastest-shrinking economy. Inflation accelerated from 7,982 percent in September, said an official at the Central Statistical Office in the capital, Harare. There are so few goods left in shops that it has become impossible to ensure the data's accuracy, said the official, who declined to be named in line with the agency's policy. Shops have run out of even the most basic foods after President Robert Mugabe ordered retailers to slash prices by half in June, forcing people to queue for days for bread, milk and other essentials. A quarter of the population has fled the country that once supplied food to much of southern Africa. “Between inflation, which demands that we re-price goods daily, and price control officials who demand we lower prices, trade has become impossible,” said Vinod Patel, who owns a wholesale shop in Mvurwi, 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of Harare. ``Shelves are virtually empty and the scarcity of locally made goods is across the range in the formal market.''
Inflation rose 136 percent in the month, the Zimbabwe Independent reported today. Zimbabwe is in its ninth year of economic recession following a failed land-seizure program implemented by Mugabe in 2000 that slashed agricultural production. The economy will probably shrink 5.7 percent this year, after contracting an estimated 1.6 percent in 2006, the central bank said Oct. 1. Moffat Nyoni, director of the CSO, said it is becoming increasingly difficult to calculate the real rate of inflation. “We don't know the rate of inflation,” he said in an interview today. “There is such a scarcity of goods that there are too many blanks in our baskets of goods to calculate it.” Shortages of food and an unemployment rate of 70 percent have forced 3 million Zimbabweans, about a quarter of the population, to flee, according to the United Nations.
Inflation, coupled with a shortage of foreign exchange, resulted in the Zimbabwe dollar collapsing to more than 1 million per U.S. dollar on the black market last month, from about 5,000 in January. The central bank devalued the official rate to 30,000, from 250 to the U.S. dollar, on Sept. 6, and may devalue the currency further when it presents its annual budget next month. “Prospects for lowering inflation are almost impossible,” said Harare-based economist John Robertson. “The authorities don't always seem to appreciate that we're in a very real crisis and urgent action is required.” Mugabe, 83, has ruled Zimbabwe since its independence from Britain in 1980.
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