Panic buying swept through the streets of Zimbabwe yesterday, as stores ran out of basic goods and shopkeepers complained that they were selling goods at a loss after the government ordered prices to be halved in a last-ditch effort to tackle hyper-inflation.

Shoppers desperate to restock in a country ravaged by shortages cleared out supermarkets in the capital, Harare, and Bulawayo, where shelves were bare of essential items such as maize meal, cooking oil, sugar, milk, soap, bread, chicken, beef and other items.

"I am selling goods at less than what I paid for them. I am selling bread at less than what it costs to bake it," a distraught Harare shopowner said, pleading for anonymity so as to avoid government retribution. "I am following the government's orders. Army soldiers came here this morning to check prices. Mugabe has threatened to seize any business that does not do what he says. I don't know how long this can continue."

Inflation is currently estimated at 10,000% and rising. Armed soldiers and the youth militia are patrolling shops and open-air markets to enforce President Robert Mugabe's price controls. More than 200 retailers have been charged with crimes of charging more than the official prices, police confirmed yesterday.

By making it uneconomic to produce and sell goods and food, Mr Mugabe risks further damaging the country's limping economy, which has shrunk by 50% over the past seven years. Economists warn the move will not control inflation but will simply push goods on to the thriving black market. Analysts say many companies and industries could go bankrupt, adding to Zimbabwe's unemployment, which is already estimated at 80%.

"Whatever money we have, we are using it to buy goods," said John Katsvete, a Harare engineer. "The shops are very busy. People are buying but it is not a happy atmosphere. They are buying out of panic."

The government ordered that cement must sell at Z$150,000, 10 times lower than the Z$1.5m it sold for last week. Mr Mugabe's youth brigade - known as the Green Bombers for the colour of their paramilitary uniforms and the chaos they stir up - stormed a building supply store and found the owner was storing 1,000 bags of cement in the back, reported the state-controlled Herald newspaper yesterday. The youth militia forced him to put it on sale immediately.

The price cuts were announced last week after Mr Mugabe gave a vitriolic speech in which he threatened to take over any business or mine that does not adhere to his policies.

"This nonsense of price escalations must come to an end," he said, adding that his government would not be undermined by businesses using "British tactics". "We will nationalise them if they continue with their dirty tricks," he said.

Following the speech the government ordered prices to be cut in half or more.

Vice-president Joseph Msika vowed that price controls would be enhanced. "If anything, government wants to see prices further reduce," he said, acting as president while Mr Mugabe was in Accra, Ghana, for the African Union summit.

"Those found on the wrong side of the law will be punished severely," Mr Msika told state radio. "We will take their businesses, we will take their licences. They have raised prices to a level the people cannot afford so they must die in agony with hunger."

Elliot Manyika, head of a government taskforce on prices, accused businesses of deliberately fuelling inflation as a strategy to topple the Mugabe government.

"The campaign is political and our detractors through business and industry have been trying to bring down the government the Yugoslavia way. We have a real war - we will overcome them," Mr Manyika told the Herald yesterday.

He said all state-owned enterprises, including Air Zimbabwe, the national railways, the electricity supply utility and the telephone company, have been ordered to cut fares and charges. A long defunct state trading company is being revived to take over businesses that collapse or are seized if they are found to be "delinquent" in their manufacturing or retailing operations.

The actual level of inflation is unclear as the government has not released its figures for June. The official rate for May of 4,500% is said by economists and major businesses to be far below the actual rate of 10,000%. Many have predicted that inflation will soar, including the American ambassador to Harare, who forecast that inflation would hit 1,500,000% before the end of 2007.

Mr Mugabe's chaotic and violent seizures of white-owned farms provoked a collapse of the agricultural sector that has left poor black farmers even worse off than before, according to agricultural experts. The UN estimates that one-third of Zimbabwe's 12 million people will need food aid over the next year.

Crisis in numbers:

Number of retailers police have so far charged with over-pricing: 200

Estimate of the unemployment rate before the latest crisis: 80%

Number of Zimbabweans who may need food aid next year, says UN: 4m