(3 Minutes Read)
The Southern African country has been grappling with currency crises for over 24 years. On April 5, it introduced the Zimbabwe Gold (ZiG), which it said was backed by 2.5 tonnes of gold and foreign currency reserves worth about USD 285 million.
Nearly five months after changing its currency to arrest inflation, Zimbabwe is back to square one as the new local unit has started losing ground against the US dollar. People, mostly traders, are pitching for it.
The southern African country has been grappling with currency crises for over 24 years. On April 5, it introduced the Zimbabwe Gold (ZiG), which it said was backed by 2.5 tonnes of gold and foreign currency reserves worth about USD 285 million.
Authorities were forced into a swift currency change after a drastic depreciation of the Zimbabwe dollar (ZWL) since its reintroduction in 2019 when it lost over 80 percent of its value from the beginning of this year
President Emmerson Mnangagwa rolled out a string of policies to shore up the new currency, including jailing street traders who were accused of peddling the parallel foreign currency market, and tightly controlling the foreign exchange rate.
The East African Community (EAC) may have to blame itself for slow trade between its partner States, even though the bloc has some of the most ambitious business protocols on the continent. Trade between members has reduced from 16 percent to 14 percent in recent years, leading to persistent protectionism and defiance of the bloc’s policies.
Read Also:
The EAC passed the Customs Union, and Common Market Protocol but private sector members drawn from the eight partner States under their umbrella body, the East African Business Council, argue that a new approach to the EAC integration is urgently required to reverse the trend.
