Zimbabwe’s annual inflation surged to 97.85 percent in May from 75.86 percent the previous month, continuing to gallop on the back of price instability driven by depreciation of the local currency, latest figures released on Monday show.

According to the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (Zimstats) the jump was primarily a result of increases in the prices of food and non alcoholic beverages, clothing and footwear, health and transport.
On the other hand, month-on-month inflation gained 7.02 percentage points to close the month of May at 12.54 percent.

“This means that prices as measured by the all items CPI (Consumer Price Index) increased by an average rate of 12.54 percent from April 2019 to May 2019,” Zimstats said.

This is the fourth consecutive rise in month-on-month inflation since February this year.

An unsteady exchange rate, which has seen the local currency depreciate against the United States dollar on both the official and parallel markets in the past few months, has continued to fuel pricing
“madness”, which has seen retailers and other service providers on a continuous hiking spree.