‘Inflation spike: Product of historical factors’

from whatever source they find affordable from outside. Opening up the borders will also help push down prices,” he said.

Zimbabwe recently announced a raft of measures to deal with the crisis and Minister Mthuli believes the measures will go a long way in putting “a damper on those price hikes”.

He, however, added that it’s also important for the country to boost production.

Mthuli said sunflower and even maize could also be used for producing cooking oil and not just soya beans which Zimbabwe tends to import more.

“Also let’s invest more in cotton production because the lint seed oil can be extracted from this cotton by-product.

“So clearly, we’ve to do some investment locally to deal with some of these food shocks as well as open up borders so that citizens can import from elsewhere.”

Minister Mthuli said the (the measures) would go a long way in dealing with price increases.

“We’ve done a lot as well in trying to make sure that we limit the speculation that’s taking place around our currency whether its action on the stock market, action on banking sector.

“We’re doing a lot in trying to make sure we stabilise the situation. But every country in the world is feeling some shock whether you’re here in Switzerland.

“Just looking at the price of fuel here in Switzerland, it’s about $2,25 and in Zimbabwe it’s actually lower than that. So you can see the impact of these fuel issues and that translates into food inflation.”

Almost every country in the world is reeling from the global shocks as well as some domestic shocks depending on the respective countries.

Turning to developments on the currency market, Minister Mthuli said government is committed to a market based exchange rate. He said as per measures announced by President Mnangagwa, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe was now only selling what is readily available.

He added that clearing the backlog by selling what we have will go a long way in building confidence in the market that truly the market forces are at play and that will go a long way then in making sure that the parallel market rate doesn’t run away the way it has done and drive the prices on our shelves.