Food Inflation Won’t Affect Zambia – CSO

2 May 2011

ZAMBIA will not be affected by the rising world food inflation because the country has sufficient food, the Central Statistical Office (CSO) has said.

CSO acting director John Kalumbi said in Lusaka at the weekend that while there was a general concern about the high levels of food inflation across the world, Zambia was instead recording a fall in inflation.

“Zambia’s economy is self sustaining and we produce enough staple food to meet our demands and because of that our inflation stays low.

We have world inflation on the up but Zambia’s inflation dropped, we grow our food and we do not easily export it,” Mr Kalumbi said.

He said Zambia managed to withstand the global financial crisis in 2008 and that this was as a result of having a strong food sufficient economy.

Inflation last month dropped to 8.8 per cent from 9.2 per cent in March at a time when world inflation was on a rise with Asia recording as much as 10 per cent in the last one month.

He said Zambia had in the last three years been producing surplus in cereals like maize, wheat, beans and soya beans and that indications were the next harvest would bring another surplus in staple crops.

He Zambia had a favourable weather pattern unlike other countries that experienced drought like in East Africa.

Mr Kalumbi said Zambia was making steady progress in terms of agriculture management and crop production levels.

Zambia last year ended the year with inflation at 7.9 per cent well within the target of eight per cent.

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