By MAIMBOLWA MULIKELELA –

ZAMBIA’S annual inflation for January 2015 stands at 7.7 from the 7.9 per cent recorded in December 2014, the Central Statistical Office (CSO) has said.
This means on average prices increased by 7.7 per cent between January 2014 and January 2015.
CSO acting director of census and statistics, Goodson Sinyenga said the annual rate of inflation as measured by the all items Consumer Price Index (CPI) for January 2015 was registered at 7.7 per cent compared to 7.9 per cent the previous month.
Between January 2014 and January 2015, the annual rate of inflation increased for clothing and footwear, furnishings, household equipment, routine house maintenance and miscellaneous goods and services.
Mr Sinyenga said the annual rate of inflation decreased for food and non alcoholic beverages, alcoholic beverage and tobacco, housing, water, electricity and fuel among others.
Mr Sinyenga said during a press briefing in Lusaka yesterday that of the 7.7 per cent annual inflation rate recorded in January 2015, food and non alcoholic beverage accounted for 3.8 percentage points while, non food products accounted for 3.9 percentage points.
“The annual food inflation rate for January 2015 was recorded at 7.4 per cent recorded in December 2014,”Mr Sinyenga said.
This indicated a decrease of 0.1 percentage points.
The annual non-food inflation rate for January 2015 decreased to 0.8 per cent from 8.4 per cent recorded in December 2014.
“Lusaka province had the highest provincial contribution of 2.5 percentage points to overall annual inflation rate of 7.7 per cent recorded in January 2015,” he said.
Copperbelt province had the second highest provincial contribution of 1.3 percentage points while North-western and Western provinces had the lowest contribution of 0.3 percentage points each.
On the comparison of retail prices between December 2014 and January 2015, Mr Sinyenga said this showed the national average price of a 25kg bag of breakfast mealie meal increasing by 0.5 per cent from K70.37 to K70.69.
The national average price of a 25kg bag of roller-meal increased by 3.0 per cent from K 51.38 to K52.91.
The national average price of a 20 litre tin of maize grain increased by 3.6 per cent from 29.24 to K30.28 while the price of dried bream also increased by 15.2 per cent from K61.43 to K70.77.
In 2015, the retail price showed that the national average price of a 2.5 litre container of cooking oil decreased by 0.1 per cent from K37.85 to K37.46.
He said the national average price of dried Kapenta decreased by 1.2 per cent from K58.02 to K57.31.