Zimbabwe's annual inflation rate surged to an unprecedented 3,714 per cent at the end of April, the official state newspaper reported.
Prices more than doubled last month as shown by a 100.7 per cent increase - the highest on record - in the consumer price index calculated by the state Central Statistical Office, the Heraldnewspaper said. In the past year they increased 36-fold.
The inflation figures were published as the government set up a commission to try to bring prices down to single-digit levels.
The Heraldsaid President Robert Mugabe on Monday signed into law regulations to enforce wage and price controls through "comprehensive price surveys and inspections," with a penalty of up to five years in jail for violators.
In recent years, the government has tried to freeze prices for corn meal, bread, cooking oil, meat, school fees and transport costs with little success. Socialist-style controls have driven a thriving black market in scarce commodities.
The independent Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries estimates most factories across the country are running at around 30 per cent capacity or less, and countless businesses have shut down, fuelling record unemployment of about 80 per cent.
The worst economic crisis since independence in 1980 is blamed on corruption, mismanagement and the often-violent seizures of thousands of white-owned commercial farms since 2000 that disrupted the agriculture-based economy.
AP