April inflation goes up
By BUSINESS REPORTER 7+E annual inÀation rate for the month of April has increased to .4 percent from the .1 recorded last month, Central Statistical Office acting director oI census and statistics, oodson Sinyenga has said.
M. Sinyenga said the increase in the annual inflation rate was because of price movements in food products in the past month.
+e said the annual food inflation rate for this month was recorded at 6.5 percent compared to 5.8 percent recorded in Marc indicating an increase of 0.7 percentage points.
Mr Sinyenga was speaking when he presented the monthly bulletin for April in Lusaka yesterday.
“Of the total 7.4 percent annual inflation rate recorded in $pril 2018, Food and non-alcoholic beverages accounted for 3.5 percentage points while non-food items accounted for a total of 3.9 percentage points,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mr Sinyenga announced that Zambia recorded a trade surplus of K 632.7 million in March this year.
He explained that the trade surplus was due to an increase in non-traditional exports by 66.2 percent.
He added however that the trade surplus has decreased by 8.9 percent from the K694 million recorded in February this year to K632.7 million in March.
“This means that in March 2018 the country exported more than it imported in nominal teams. Imports increased by 3.4 percent from K7, 765.1 million in February 2018 to 8,031.5 million in March 2018 while exports increased by 2.4 percent, “he said.
He explained that metal export earnings decreased by 11.9 percent from 6,906.1 million in February to 6,082.2 million in March.
Mr. Siyenga said the overall contribution of metals to the total export earnings between February and March averaged 75.9 percent while that of nontraditional export increased by 66.2 percent.
He said the 2017 labour force survey shows that the estimated labour force was 5,049,059 persons of which 2,759,098 are males and 2,289,961 were females adding that 52 percent of the labour force was in urban areas while 48 percent is in rural areas.