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Zimbabwe to Phase Out Worthless Local Dollar
From Agence France-Presse
via Raidio Teilifis Eireann, Dublin
Thursday, June 11, 2015
http://www.rte.ie/news/business/2015/0611/707...imbabwe-dollar/
The Zimbabwean dollar will officially be taken out of circulation,
officials said today, six years after hyper-inflation rendered it worthless
and US dollars became the most widely-used currency.
The government effectively abandoned the local currency in 2009 and
adopted a multiple-currency system that includes the US dollar and the South
African rand.
"Zimbabwe adopted the multiple-currency system or dollarization in 2009
and it is therefore necessary to demonetise the Zimbabwe dollar unit,"
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor John Mangudya said at a news conference.
"We are decommissioning this currency," he added.
The southern African country once removed 12 zeros from its battered
currency at the height of hyper-inflation in 2009 when the largest note was
the $100 trillion denomination.
Official figures put inflation at 230 million per cent but in reality it
was much higher.
Mangudya said $20 million has been set aside to offset Zimbabwe dollar
bank balances and to pay people still holding to the local unit. The process
will run until September, he said.
"People went through a difficult process in terms of inflation. Yes,
we know that there was hyperinflation. We need to ensure that as a country we
move forward," Mangudya said.
Zimbabwe has been saddled with a financial crisis for over a decade
following President Robert Mugabe's land reforms, which decimated farming,
the backbone of the economy.
Growth is expected to weaken further this year, according to the
International Monetary Fund.
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