Zimbabwe to introduce new Currency

Zimbabwe’s central bank chief, John Mangudya, says he will introduce a new currency in the next two weeks to address biting liquidity shortages in the economy and regain monetary policy control after years of dollarization.

Mangudya told journalists in the capital city that the as-of-yet-unnamed currency will have denominations of coins and notes with a maximum value of five Zimbabwe dollars.

“The new currency would trade along with the bond notes and the coins and would have the same value as these surrogate currencies,”Mangudya said

He defended the bank’s decision to have a note worth only five Zimbabwe dollars as the highest denomination in a hyper inflationary environment, saying he wanted uniformity with the denominations that are already in the market.

Mangudya said in line with the law, Zimbabwe’s President must agree to the creation of a new monetary unit and after he assent, the minister of finance will then issue a decree, paving the way for the printing of the currency.