Zimbabwe economy growth on track: Biti

In his Mid-Term Fiscal Policy statement, Finance Minister Tendai Biti said Zimbabwe's economy is on course to grow by 9.3 percent  in 2011, up from 8.1 percent last year, mainly due to a recovery in the mining and agriculture sectors.

Agriculture will expand 19.3 percent, while mining output leaps 44 percent, Biti said in his mid-term budget statement

The country's economy has contracted sharply through most of this decade due to what critics said has been economic mismanagement by the government of President Robert Mugabe.

Biti said the Zimbabwe would achieve a year-end inflation rate of 4.0 percent, lower than the initial forecast of 4.5 percent. Annual inflation rose to 2.9 percent in June from 2.5 percent in May.

Zimbabwe has experienced single-digit inflation since 2009, helping to keep inflation in check was higher maize output, which Biti said would rise to 1.45 million tonnes in the 2010/11 season from 1.32 million tonnes in 2009/10.

The agricultural sector has started to recover after years of food shortages that were blamed on disruptions caused by Mugabe's seizure of white-owned commercial farms for black resettlement.