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JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) - Huge price increases for bread, electricity and meat drove Zimbabwe's annual inflation rate to 1,593.6 percent, the Central Statistical Office was quoted Tuesday as saying.
The figure for January 2007 represents a 312.5 percent increase on the December rate, the biggest leap in 17 months. Economists have said there could be hourly price increases in stores by May or June, the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper reported last week.
Zimbabwe has seen runaway inflation for five years since President Robert Mugabe began seizing thousands of white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to blacks.
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