Inflation is up
The monthly inflation rate passed the 50 percent mark - the threshold for defining 'hyperinflation'- in March 2007; in January 2009 the RBZ issued the world's first 100 trillion dollar note.
"Since then, it's gotten much worse," said Steve Hanke, professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, in the US, and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a Washington-based think-tank. The latest official RBZ figure, dating back to July 2008, put year-on-year inflation at more than 231 million percent.
In the absence of credible official statistics, Hanke developed a hyperinflation index for Zimbabwe and in an article in the December 2008 issue of the financial magazine, Forbes Asia, put the annual inflation rate at around 6.5 quindecillion novemdecillion percent - 65 followed by 107 zeros. "Prices double every 24.7 hours," he noted.
Things don't seem quite so bad here do they?