Inflation edged up to an annual rate of 12.1 percent in the countries of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) in June compared to the annual rate of 11.6 percent in June, according to new figures. In the countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the annual rate eased to 7.5 percent in June compared with 7.8 percent in May.
The figures are from the Harmonised Consumer Price Indices (HIPC) produced by COMESA Secretariat and the SADC Secretariat. The African Development Bank (AfDB), together with the European Union, has been providing financial support for the development of the HCPI in the COMESA region, and the SADC collaborates with COMESA and the AfDB in the exercise.
The overall figures hide a wide range of inflation rates for individual countries. In the participating COMESA member countries, the highest inflation rate was for the troubled country of Sudan at 38 percent annually in June, followed by Burundi at 25 percent.
The country with the lowest inflation rate was Mauritius at 2.7 percent, closely followed by Zimbabwe at 2.8 percent. As for the SADC countries, Malawi had the highest inflation rate at 18.9 percent, while the lowest was 2.1 percent in Mozambique.