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Zambia’s annual inflation rate remained unchanged at 16.7 percent in January 2025, while the country recorded a trade deficit of K3.3 billion in December 2024.
Zambia Statistics Agency (ZamStat) Acting Statistician General, Sheila Mudenda, said during a monthly briefing on Thursday that inflation for January was the same as December 2024.
“This means that, on average, prices of goods and services increased by 16.7 percent between January 2024 and January 2025. This was mainly due to price movements in food items,” Mudenda said.
Annual food inflation rose to 19.2 percent in January 2025, up from 18.6 percent in December 2024.
The increase was driven by higher prices of bread, cereals, meat, fish, eggs, and sugar.
Read more:Inflation edges up to 15.5% in Zambia, as country records K1.38 billion trade surplus
Meanwhile, annual non-food inflation declined to 13.2 percent in January from 14.2 percent in December, largely due to price movements in non-food items such as furniture and furnishings.
Lusaka Province contributed the highest share of the overall 16.7 percent inflation at 4.1 percentage points, followed by Copperbelt at 3.9 percentage points.
Central and Southern Provinces contributed 2.4 and 1.8 percentage points, respectively, while North-Western Province had the lowest contribution at 0.5 percentage points.
The monthly food inflation rate for January 2025 rose to 2.8 percent, up from 1.4 percent in December 2024.
Zambia recorded a trade deficit of K3.3 billion in December 2024, a sharp reversal from the K1.1 billion trade surplus in November 2024.
Mudenda attributed the deficit to a 14.2 percent decline in exports, which fell from K31.5 billion in November to K27 billion in December.
The drop was mainly due to lower export earnings from intermediate goods (down 14.8 percent), raw materials (down 17 percent), and consumer goods (down 2.8 percent).
Imports also declined slightly by 0.4 percent, from K30.4 billion in November to K30.3 billion in December.
This was primarily driven by a 20.3 percent reduction in raw material imports and a 3.8 percent decline in consumer goods imports.
Despite steady inflation, the widening trade deficit highlights ongoing economic challenges, particularly in Zambia’s export sector.
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