The state Central Statistical Office in its latest bulletin put the year-on-year all-items cost of living index at 622,8, surging sharply ahead after dipping in December to 598% from 620% in November.
January price increases measured month-on-month were 14% up on December, against a record of 35% in October.
Zimbabwe's inflation is characterised as the world's highest, a symptom of the once-thriving economy's crisis, which is also marked by the fastest shrinking gross domestic product, at 40% in four years, and a third successive year of famine where now 7,5-million people are facing starvation.
The CSO's figures yesterday put communications costs – mostly telephones -up 2 048% for the year, while vehicle running costs rose 1 395%.
Medical fees cost 873% more than a year ago, while meat costs 765% more and bread 890% more.
The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank blame President Robert Mugabe's reckless economic policies and political repression against critics that have dried up foreign investment and brought on a cut off in international development aid.
Economists say one of the most severe factors was Mugabe's lawless "land reform programme" that drove nearly all the country's 4 50 white commercial farmers off their property and destroyed an agricultural industry that gave the country the reputation as "breadbasket of Africa".
For the third year in a row now, severe shortfalls in harvests have made Zimbabwe reliant on international famine relief. – Sapa-DPA.
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