Overall monthly inflation increased to 2.1% in January 2023

The overall monthly inflation for January 2023 was recorded at 2.1 percent compared with 0.8 percent the previous month. This outturn was mainly attributed to price increases in food items (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: Overall Monthly Inflation, January 2022-January 2023

Monthly Inflation Rates for Food and Non-Food Items, January 2022-January 2023

Monthly food inflation for January 2023 was recorded at 2.8 percent an increase from 0.5 percent in December 2022. This development was mainly attributed to general price movements for Cereals (Breakfast Mealie Meal, Roller Mealie Meal, Maize Grain); Meat (Offal’s, Pork Chops, Goat Meat, Chicken Live, Tinned Meat); Fish (Frozen fish, Buka-buka, Dried Bream, Dried Kapenta Siavonga) and cooking oil.

Monthly non-food inflation for January 2023 remained the same, at 1.1 percent (see Table 5).

Table 5: Overall Monthly Inflation Rate for Food and Non-Food Items, Jan 2022-Jan 2023 (%)

	Weight:	Jan- 2022	Feb- 2022	Mar- 2022	Apr- 2022	May- 2022	June- 2022	July- 2022	Aug- 2022	Sep- 2022	Oct- 2022	Nov- 2022	Dec- 2022	Jan – 2023
Total	1,000.00	2.6	1.7	0.8	0.7	0.8	0.9	0.4	0.3	-0.4	0.2	0.7	1.1	2.1
Food	534.85	3.1	1.9	0.9	1.1	0.9	1.2	0.3	0.4	-0.2	0.4	0.9	0.5	2.8
Non- Food	465.15	1.9	1.5	0.6	0.1	0.8	0.6	0.7	0.1	-0.6	-0.2	0.5	1.1	1.1