Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. The economy of Zimbabwe contracted in the second quarter of the year. Gross domestic product (GDP) at market prices nearly halved to US$3.28 billion from the previous period, mainly due to the depreciation of the local currency. In the first quarter, GDP at market prices was ZWL$6.65 trillion or US$7.15 billion, NewsDay reported citing the latest data by ZimStat. However, GDP rebounded in the third quarter to ZWL$41.35 trillion or US$7.56 billion, following measures implemented by fiscal and monetary authorities to halt the currency depreciation.
During the presentation of the third-quarter GDP estimates, Tapiwa Gumbo, the national accounts and analysis manager at ZimStat, mentioned that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had inspected their methodology and agreed with the findings. Gumbo said:
People sometimes have what they think is normal and should be done, which probably ideally is not what is provided in the manual. So, we try to follow the manual so that our statistics are accurate, are comparable with other countries. So, this is what we try to do and publish because we were presenting a national GDP.
So, what we do here is publish the quarterly annual GDP numbers. So, they (IMF) are checking on our methodology, and data, are we following the systems of national accounts? They scrutinised, provided a second eye to the statistics and reviewed the methodology. We showed them the system, the national accounts database system that we normally use and we agreed.
However, just two days earlier, the IMF had expressed concern over the competencies and methodology used by ZimStat in determining key economic metrics.
Concerns have been raised by the British-based economic researcher, World Economics, and the World Bank regarding the government’s data collection methods to determine key economic metrics.
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