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Last Updated: Dec 29, 2007 - 9:27:55 AM |
Zimbabwe's Central
Statistical Office stopped providing data on inflation in September saying it
could not find prices for key goods because they were not on store shelves. But
the Reserve bank came up with the estimate for the use of financial
institutions and publicly trade companies in drawing up their financial
accounts for the year.
A memo leaked from the central bank told institutions
and companies that "you are hereby advised to use the 24,059 percent
year-on-year inflation figure for November in the compilation of financial
results for the period ending December 2007." Recent estimates of
Zimbabwean inflation by independent economists have tended to run quite a bit
higher, ranging from 50,000% to 100,000%. Economist Prosper Chitambara told VOA
that the central bank estimate of 24,000% is "conservative."
But
economist Eric Bloch, who has been a consultant to the central bank, said he
reckons the 12-month inflation rate to be around 25,000%. An IMF official
recently said Zimbabwe was heading down the same path as Weimar Germany, though
if the more pessimistic current estimates are correct, the country has already
exceeded the Weimar peak of 32,400% attained in 1923. However, it has a ways
yet to go to match Yugoslavia's 1994 rate of 313 million percent (both figures
cited by monetary expert Steve Hanke in Forbes in June 2007).
Source:Ocnus.net 2007
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