Dar es Salaam, Aug. 26 -- NOT long ago, a business owner told me something, “Inflation is not a number to me,” he said, “it is a customer walking out because milk for coffee went up again.” That line captures what many Tanzanian businesses are quietly facing. Inflation is not abstract.

It is lived every day in tighter margins, rising fuel bills and customers who suddenly think twice before spending. We often talk about business survival as if it rests on strategy, connections or luck.

But survival rests on numbers. Not just the ones on financial statements, but the figures shaping the economy itself. Inflation, interest rates, consumer spending, fuel prices, mobile penetration, these are not background statistics...