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Zambia’s annual inflation rate for July 2025 slowed to 13.0 percent from 14.1 percent recorded in June, largely driven by declining food and non-food prices, the Zambia Statistics Agency (ZamStats) has announced.
Speaking during a media briefing held at the Lusaka Showgrounds on Thursday, Acting Statistician General, Sheila Mudenda, said the deceleration in inflation signaled easing pressure on the cost of living compared to the same period last year.
“This means that on average, prices of goods and services increased by 13.0 percent between July 2024 and July 2025,” Mudenda explained.
Read more: Zambia’s annual inflation slows to 14.1% in June 2025, trade surplus hits K1.5 billion
She stated that: “This development was attributed to price movements in both food and non-food items.”
She said food inflation dropped to 15.3 percent in July from 16.7 percent in June, largely due to price changes in items such as cereals (including mealie meal, maize, samp, and rice), vegetables, fruits, chicken, butter, and cooking oil.
Non-food inflation also declined, falling to 9.7 percent from 10.3 percent in June.
Mudenda attributed this to lower prices in motor vehicles, passenger air transport, household appliances, fuel, and paraffin.
At the provincial level, she said the highest annual inflation was recorded in Western Province at 17.6 percent, an increase from 16.7 percent in June.
Mudenda noted that other provinces like Central, Copperbelt, Eastern, Luapula, Lusaka, Northern, North-Western and Southern recorded decreases.
Lusaka Province contributed the highest to the overall national inflation rate at 4.1 percentage points, followed by the Copperbelt at 2.8 percentage points.
On a monthly basis, inflation for July stood at 0.3 percent, down from 0.4 percent in June, driven by marginal increases in food prices.
In contrast, non-food prices declined by 0.3 percent compared to a 0.2 percent drop in the previous month.
Meanwhile, cumulative trade for the first half of 2025 rose to K322.2 billion, up 22.1 percent from K263.9 billion during the same period last year.
Exports between January and June 2025 stood at K158.8 billion, with road transport accounting for K151.6 billion, representing 95.5 percent of total export value. Air and rail accounted for 2.6 percent and 0.5 percent, respectively.
Imports during the same period amounted to K163.4 billion. Road transport remained the dominant mode at 51.1 percent, followed by air at 5.9 percent and rail at 0.6 percent.
However, the country recorded a trade deficit of K5.3 billion in June 2025, reversing a surplus of K1.5 billion recorded in May.
“The decline in exports was mainly due to reductions in earnings from intermediate goods by 32.5 percent, consumer goods by 12.1 percent, and raw materials by 4.5 percent,” said Mudenda.
She said that: “Imports also dropped by 6.1 percent, mainly driven by decreases in consumer, capital and raw material goods.”
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