Zimbabwe's year-on-year inflation rate for the month of April increased to 129.1 percent, gaining 5. 4 percentage points on the March rate of 123.7 percent, the Central Statistical Office (CSO) announced on Friday.

This means that prices as measured by the all items Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased by an average of 129.1 percent between April 2004 and April 2005.

The CSO attributed the increase to a rise in the average price of beverages, meat, fruit, vegetables and communication.

Of the 129.1 percent inflation rate, increases in food prices accounted for 43.6 percentage points while non-food items in the CPI accounted for 85.5 percentage points.

Monthly inflation rate for April stood at 7.4 percent gaining 3. 2 percentage points on the March 2005 rate of 4.2 percent.

Zimbabwe's inflation progressively declined during the whole year of 2004 but has been fluctuating since the beginning of this year owing to inflationary pressures such as an overvalued exchange rate and speculative activities that have not been addressed.

The developments have forced the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to revise inflation targets for the end of 2005 from the initial 35 percent to above 80 percent.

Zimbabwe has declared inflation, which peaked at 622.8 percent in January last year, its number one enemy.

Source: Xinhua