By Hyde Haguta
Zambia’s inflation rate has declined from a high of 9.1 in May to 7.8 per cent in June this year.
Director of Central Statistical Office EFFREDA CHULU says the decline in the inflation rate is due to the decrease in some food prices such as Maize Meal, Maize grain, fresh vegetables and other food stuffs.
The reduction in the food prices follow a bumper harvest recorded in the agricultural sector.
Zambia also recorded a trade surplus of 762.9 billion Kwacha in the month of May 2010.
Chulu says the trade surplus means that the country exported more than it imported in the same period.
The development is a positive indicator of good economic performance according to Chulu.
CHULU says the country saw an increase in Non-traditional exports from April to May due to favorable conditions in the agricultural and mining sectors.
She says the major export products in the same period were from intermediate goods such as copper cathodes and sections of refined copper such as copper blisters which amounted to 80.5 per cent of the total exports.
Chulu says the raw materials category was second with 8.4 per cent and comprised mainly cobalt and copper ores and concentrates respectively.
Speaking in Ndola the Provincial capital of the Copper belt province when her office released this month’s bulletin during the Zambia International Trade Fair, Chulu said other exports items that accounted for the trade surplus in June are consumer and capital goods which collectively netted 11.1 per cent total exports.
And according to Chulu, there has been a reduction in Zambia’s metal exports and non-traditional exports in the period April to May this year.
The country’s dominant metal products recorded a low growth value of negative 8.3 per cent over the same period.
The five major export destinations in the same period were Switzerland, China, South Africa, the DR Congo and the United Arab Emirates which collectively accounted for 90.4 per cent of Zambia’s total earnings.
Meanwhile the Central Statistical Office is scheduled to conduct a population census exercise in October this year.
The information collected will be used for national planning and development according to CSO Director Efreda Chulu.
The census population exercise will entail a head count of all persons living in Zambia regardless of their nationality to provide accurate data for planning.
Chulu says the exercise is not a waste of money but important undertaking to contrary to insinuations in some quarters that the census of population is waste of money.
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