Zimbabwe's annual inflation slowed to triple digit figures in the year to July but analysts said price pressures remained high enough to push it back to four digit levels, belying ordinary citizens' struggle with rocketing prices.
Official data on Wednesday showed that inflation - which remains the world's highest - braked to 993.6 percent from June's 1,184.6 percent, its successive slowdown in two months.
Zimbabwe is grappling with a deep economic crisis, the product of an economic meltdown widely blamed on President Robert Mugabe's government and marked by shortages of foreign currency, fuel and food, rising jobless and grinding poverty.
Anthony Hawkins, professor of business studies at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare, dismissed the latest figure, adding: "Inflation will rise sharply during the second half of this year because of huge increases in prices of commodities and also due to high money supply growth".
Urban residents have been the hardest hit by an 8-year recession and have to contend with burst sewer pipes and power and water cuts, fanning political tensions in the southern African nation.
The Central Statistical Office (CSO) said that, on a monthly basis, Zimbabwe's consumer price index rose 25.1 percent in July after a 17.3 percent increase the previous month. Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa said last month inflation would average 1,000 percent this year.