Annual inflation exceeds 10 per cent
Mozambique’s annual inflation rate in June reached 10.81 per cent, according to the latest figures issued by the National Statistics Institute (INE), thus dealing a blow to the government’s hopes of single digit inflation (that is, inflation of less than 10 per cent).
Based on the consumer price indices for the three largest cities (Maputo, Beira and Nampula), the INE calculated inflation for June at 0.83 per cent.
This brought inflation for the first six months of the year to 6.44 per cent. Annual inflation (from 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2022) was 10.81 percent. In May, annual inflation had been 9.31 per cent.
The main price rises in June were for diesel (8.1 per cent), petrol (5.4 per cent), bread (5.1 per cent), vegetable oil (3.3 per cent) and material for house maintenance and repairs (3.8 per cent).
The average prices for several other goods fell during the month – lettuce (by 8.2 per cent), coconuts (6.2 per cent), onions (5.9 per cent), dried fish (5.8 per cent), groundnuts (4.4 per cent), and fresh fish (one per cent). But these reductions in price could not outweigh the increased prices of fuel and bread.
This is the highest annual inflation rate since December 2016, when the figure reached 23.67 per cent. The soaring inflation of late 2016 was part of the economic crisis provoked by the scandal of Mozambique’s “hidden debts”.
