Zimbabwe kills own currency for a year after reaching 230 million % inflation.

Started by Syt, April 13, 2009, 01:59:25 AM

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Syt

A nice tie-in with the money thread.

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE53B0SF20090412

QuoteZimbabwe shelves own currency for a year

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe will not use its own local currency for at least a year, a state newspaper reported on Sunday, while it tries to repair an economy which critics say was destroyed by President Robert Mugabe.

The southern African state has allowed the use of multiple foreign currencies since January to stem hyperinflation which had rocketed to over 230 million percent and left the Zimbabwe dollar almost worthless.

The state-controlled Sunday Mail said the unity government of Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai decided the Zimbabwe dollar should only be reintroduced when industrial output reaches about 60 percent of capacity from the current 20 percent average.

"The Zimbabwe dollar will be out for at least a year. We resolved that there will be no immediate plans to (re)introduce the money because there is nothing to support and hold its value," the newspaper quoted Economic Planning and Development Minister Elton Mangoma as saying.

"Our focus is to first ensure that we have a vibrant industry. If we try to reintroduce the local currency now, it will face the same fate of being wiped out of its value within weeks."

On Thursday, Zimbabwe's Central Statistical Office (CSO) said consumer prices fell for a third straight month in March after the government abandoned its worthless currency.

The CSO said inflation stood at -3.0 percent month-on-month in March compared with -3.1 percent in February, as food prices fell.

Critics say Mugabe, who has led Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980, has destroyed one of Africa's most promising economies through controversial policies, including the seizure of white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to inexperienced black farmers.

Mugabe, 85, denies the charge and says the economy has been sabotaged by enemies opposed to his nationalist policies.

Zimbabwe is seeking an urgent cash injection of $2 billion to stabilize an economy suffering unemployment above 90 percent and a severe shortage of foreign currency.

Western donors have held back aid, demanding the unity government in which Tsvangirai is the prime minister undertakes political and other reforms.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
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Caliga

0 Ed Anger Disapproval Points

garbon

"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Syt

Quote from: garbon on April 13, 2009, 10:40:07 AM
I didn't know this was even possible. :blink:

Why not? Countries in ex-Yugo unilaterally used the German Mark, then Euro instead of their own currency.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
—Stephen Jay Gould

Proud owner of 42 Zoupa Points.

garbon

"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Syt

Quote from: garbon on April 13, 2009, 11:05:14 AM
Because I didn't? :huh:

The "why not" was aimed at the possibility of renouncing one's currency, not your knowledge of this. Do you have Asperger's that you take everything so literal?
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
—Stephen Jay Gould

Proud owner of 42 Zoupa Points.

garbon

"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

PDH

I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
-Umberto Eco

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"I'm pretty sure my level of depression has nothing to do with how much of a fucking asshole you are."

-CdM