Lower Inflation: Prices Ease

Zambia Statistics Agency disseminated the Monthly Statistics Bulletin for the month of May, 2025 today 29^th May. Speaking on behalf of the Acting Statistician General, the Chief Statistician Ms. Chola Nakazwe Daka highlighted that the Annual inflation rate for May 2025 has slowed down to 15.3 percent from 16.5 percent recorded in April 2025.

The Chief Statistician attributed this to the slowdown in prices of both food items such as cereals, vegetables and fruits and non- food items such as the purchase of vehicles, passenger transport by air and fuel.

Ms. Nakazwe further stated that a disaggregation of the annual inflation by province shows that annual inflation during the month under review decreased for all the Provinces. However, Central province has continued to record the highest inflation rate at 18.0 percent. It is also worth noting that six provinces namely Central, Western, North Western, Copperbelt, Luapula and Lusaka recorded inflation rates higher than the national inflation of 15.3 percent.

She also stated that the national average prices of cereals went down where a 25 kg bag of breakfast reduced to K344.41 in May 2025 compared to K358.86 in April 2025 indicating a decrease of 4.0 percent. The price of a 25 kg bag of Roller mealie meal also dropped from K294.19 to K285.24. Maize grain saw the biggest drop, falling from K182.93 in April 2025 to K142.10 per 20-liter tin in May 2025 indicating a 22.3 percent decrease.

She added that national average fuel prices went down in May 2025 compared to April 2025. Petrol dropped from K34.98 per litre in April 2025 to K32.14 in May 2025, while diesel fell from K30.23 in April 2025 to K27.38 per litre in May 2025.

In International Merchandise Trade, Cumulative Total trade for the period January to April 2025 was recorded at K214.7 billion 2025 compared to K163.4 Billion for the same period in 2024 representing a 31.4 percent increase. The country recorded a trade Surplus of K0.49 billion in April 2025 compared to the Surplus of K0.47 billion recorded in March 2025.

Export earnings from refined copper decreased by 0.3 percent from K19.7 billion in March 2025 to K19.6 billion in April, 2025. Refined Copper Export volumes increased by 1.6 percent from 71.2 thousand metric tonnes in March 2025 to 72.3 thousand metric tonnes in April 2025.