Zimbabwe Business Watch : Week 31
July 29th, 2009
The credit crunch continues to bite. External supplier credit is drying up and less and less funding is available through finance institutions and this is crippling revival and any hopes of expansion.
Smaller operations are working 2-3 day weeks and larger corporations chose to work alternate weeks.
The good news in the budget has revived hopes but the business community appreciates that these measures are likely to be rather cosmetic if the fundamental issue of finance is not resolved.
The month on month inflation figure for June was up 0.6% from the May rate of -1.0%. The June figure for month on month inflation was influenced by an increase in non-food inflation that rose by 2.5 percentage points.
The Stock Exchange remained flat with limited movements expressed. Zimbabwe’s cost index has come down to the level of Mozambique but still remains just ahead of Zambia.
The cost of living in Zimbabwe is expected to drop below that of regional countries by the end of the year as more lower priced local goods and services enter the market.
