Zimbabwe has been reintroducing its own currency since February 2019
HARARE – Zimbabwe’s central bank on Tuesday announced the introduction of a new 50-dollar note, the country’s highest denomination, worth only around $0.60 in US currency.
Insufficient to pay even for a loaf of bread, the bill’s entry into circulation has revived memories of hyperinflation seen more than a decade ago in the southern African nation.
As price growth spiralled out of control, denominations at the time mounted as high as a 100-trillion-dollar note.
Award-winning journalist and government critic Hopewell Chin’ono scoffed at the new banknote, which at the unofficial black market exchange rate will be worth just $0.35 in US dollars.
“It tells you something about inflation in your country if you need 3 notes of your highest currency denomination to buy a premium beer in a supermarket,” tweeted Chin’ono.
The new note is the latest and most valuable in a series introduced from February 2019 as Zimbabwe moved back to using local currency.
US dollars had been used since 2009, when the country trashed its own worthless units after hyperinflation reached 500 billion percent.
Now the new denomination is stoking fears of a return of the kind of hyperinflation that wiped out savings and collapsed the economy, with head-spinning daily leaps in the prices of goods and services.
Last year Zimbabwe’s inflation rate soared to more than 800 percent, but it has begun easing with the June year-on-year rate officially at 106.64 percent, according to the National Statistical Agency.
The central bank had forecast inflation to slow to 55 percent in July.
COMMENTS
Deserves to be dumped into the nearest trash bin….!
In light of what we have been through all these years ,why is it that our once stable currency has pear shaped to this now. Botswana ,Zambia and others have a stable currency system and we taught them before . Why is ZanuPF manipulating our currency and playing with people’s life’s . We all know what is happening but we are too afraid to even speak out as our elected officials are part of the gravy train. ED and co must vacate asap if we are to reach middle income by 2030.
The ZW money keeps becoming valueless as the ZANUPF run Reserve Bank Of Zimbabwe keeps rigging the exchange rate. For example the RBOZ says one USD is worth 85 ZW dollars but the black market says its 130 ZW dollars per one USD.
The RBOZ also does not tell you the truth about money supply. That is the amount of money in circulation. As the Govt of ZW continues to spend more than it earns the more it has to print. The more it prints the less value the ZW dollar can hold.
More ZW dollars around continually means its value relative to the USD falls.