{"id":80658,"date":"2019-07-17T10:24:54","date_gmt":"2019-07-17T08:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=80658"},"modified":"2019-07-17T10:24:54","modified_gmt":"2019-07-17T08:24:54","slug":"inflation-inches-up-to-9-percent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2019\/07\/17\/inflation-inches-up-to-9-percent\/","title":{"rendered":"Inflation inches up to 9 percent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>By Taonga Sabola: <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_78986\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-78986\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/floods.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-78986\" src=\"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/floods-300x134.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"134\" srcset=\"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/floods-300x134.jpg 300w, https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/floods-768x342.jpg 768w, https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/floods.jpg 820w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-78986\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">CATASTROPHIC\u2014Floods<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Malawi\u2019s headline inflation inched up by 0.1 percentage points in June 2019 to settle at 9 percent as food prices began to bite.<\/p>\n<p>Despite registering a bumper harvest this year, Malawi has seen early pressure mounting on food prices, partly due to deficits recorded in most Southern Region districts affected by floods caused by Cyclone Idai.<\/p>\n<p>This has seen the price of maize hovering around K180 per kilogramme (kg), or K9,000 per 50 kg bag, barely four months after harvest.<\/p>\n<p>In an inflation update released Tuesday, Zomba-based National Statistical Office (NSO) says June 2019 headline inflation was 0.4 percentage points higher than the 8.6 percent recorded in June 2018.<\/p>\n<p>It says food inflation was recorded at 13.7 percent in June 2019 while non-food inflation was seen at 5.4 percent.<\/p>\n<p>Analysts recently warned that the recent fall in the value of the kwacha could fuel inflation which may threaten Malawi\u2019s inflation target for the year.<\/p>\n<p>In its mid-year economic report released on Friday, investment management and advisory firm, Nico Asset Managers, says it expects inflation to ease to around 8 percent at the end of 2019 and gradually converge to 5 percent over the medium term.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cThese estimates are predicted upon the continued softening of global oil prices and higher agricultural output and controlled government spending.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cHowever, adverse weather, pest-related disruptions to crop production and a sharper-than-expected depreciation of the kwacha pose major upside risks and may cause the inflation rate to edge up,\u201d<\/em> the report reads in part.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Reserve Bank of Malawi targets an inflation rate of around 5 percent by 2021, which would help the monetary authorities bring down the policy rate to around 11 percent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Taonga Sabola: Malawi\u2019s headline inflation inched up by 0.1 percentage points in June 2019 to settle at 9 percent as food prices began to bite. Despite registering a bumper harvest this year, Malawi has seen early pressure mounting on food prices, partly due to deficits recorded in most Southern Region districts affected by floods [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":28487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80658"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80662,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80658\/revisions\/80662"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}