HARARE – Zimbabwe’s annual inflation raced to 97.85 percent in May from 75.86 percent the previous month, the national statistics agency Zimstats said on Monday.
Month-on-month, prices rose 12.54 percent during the same period compared with 5.52 percent in April, Zimstats added.
This is the highest inflation figure in over a decade, but economists say the true inflation figures are much higher because Zimstats calculations are based on a limited range of goods.
Most Zimbabwean workers have seen their buying power eroded since February when the central bank finally lifted an artificial and discredited 1:1 peg for the local bond notes to the United States dollar after announcing a new transitional currency called the RTGS dollar.
The RTGS traded at 6.08 to the US dollar on the official interbank market on Monday, but was 9.7 on the thriving parallel market used by most shops to set their prices.
