WASHINGTON: Burundi’s year-on-year inflation rose to 3.9 percent in June from 2.7 percent in May, driven up by high costs of food items on local markets, official figures showed on Wednesday. Food inflation accelerated to 4.0 percent in the year to June from 2.8 percent in May, the Institute of Economic studies and Statistics (ISTEEBU) said in its monthly report.
Political unrest provoked by President Pierre Nkurunziza’s decision to run for a third term in April last year affected the economic activity in the capital Bujumbura, which accounts for 55 percent of the national output.
Human rights abuses and a crackdown on opposition, media and civil society activists pushed Western donors to suspend aid to the Central African country’s government. The impact of the external aid cut is now visible, Faustin Ndikumana, a macroeconomic analyst, told Reuters, referring to the continuous depreciation of the franc against the dollar.The country has now to rely on modest revenues from coffee and tea exports and on domestic tax collection. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts the economy to grow by 3.4 percent this year after shrinking 7.2 percent in 2015.
