Governor of the Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM) who also sits as the Chairperson of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) Wilson Banda has hinted at a prolonged tight monetary policy stance in a quest to contain rising inflation in the economy.
In an interview on the sidelines of the launch of the risk-based supervision (RBS) framework for insurance companies in Blantyre on Monday, Banda said recent increases in inflation do not necessarily mean that efforts by the Central Bank are ineffective.
He said this year has been a very difficult one considering the cyclones that hit the country especially in the southern parts resulting in Malawi having maize shortages.
Banda said the situation necessitated movement of maize – the country’s stapple food – from various parts of the country to the Southern Region.
“…Because of that, the landed price of maize in some parts of the country has been very high so this is what has translated into a sustained rise in inflation, certainly through maize. We expect that as monetary policy authorities, we should not relent, we should not give up. We should continue tightening a monetary policy. We believe that come July, [and] August, we should start seeing inflation come down. But we are hopeful that inflation will come down. We do not think it is going to be a sustained rise in prices.
“The Monetary Policy Committee is meeting next month. Given the environment, we would like to maintain a very tight monetary policy and by tight monetary policy, we mean a policy that will translate into obviously high policy rates, maybe a tighter liquidity reserve requirement. We needed to tighten that in the short term in order to make sure that once prices come down, they are sustained in that direction,” Banda said.
Banda added that any relaxation or loosening up of monetary policy at this stage would not only undermine domestic prices to come back to haunt the economy in a further weakening of the exchange rate.
Inflation inched up for the second successive month by 0.4 percentage points to 32.7 percent in May, according to recent figures from the National Statistical Office (NSO).
Published Consumer Price Indices (CPI) for May 2024, Food and Non-Food inflation rates are at 40.7 percent and 22.1 percent, respectively.
“The national month to month inflation rate for May 2024 stands at 1.8 percent. Food inflation rate is at 2.5 percent while Non-Food inflation rate is at 0.6 percent. The urban month to month inflation rate is at 2.0 percent. Urban Food and Non-Food inflation rates stand at 3.4 percent and 0.2 percent, respectively. The rural month to month inflation rate is at 1.7 percent. Rural Food and Non-Food inflation rates stand at 2.1 percent and 0.9 percent, respectively,” a recent statistical flash reads.
In an earlier interview, economist Marvin Banda said when there are inflationary pressures that have been putting a lot of leverage in the economy, there is need to start looking at the marginal gains that are realised by the economy.
“If we have an agribusiness cycle, such as the one that we experience in Malawi, there are certain times of the year when we are experiencing drops and rises in inflation. So, when we cross over the year and we get to the harvest period, we start looking at the month -on -month inflation to see whether that one has appreciated or has depreciated.
“When experts are looking at it, they are trying to compare how the prices are this year and this month compared to last year in the same month. So, when you see that one, you see that there was an uptick in the drop and an uptick again, and so that’s what you are going to experience because they are looking at it in terms of what were the prices in, for example, May last year,” Banda said.
