Despite the soaring use of the U.S. dollar across the country’s economy, Zimbabwe doesn’t intend to move away from its local Zimbabwean dollar. This was confirmed by Zimbabwe’s minister of finance Mthuli Ncube in a recent interview with Bloomberg.
Ncube acknowledged that the U.S. dollar now has extensive use in his country but doesn’t view it as a bad thing. According to him, this gives Zimbabwe a way to access foreign currency.
Statistics have shown that the US dollar accounts for 77% of all transactions done across the country.
“Zimbabwe is very clear, the currency for transaction is the Zimbabwe dollar and US dollar and we are very comfortable with that,” Ncube told Bloomberg TV. “For now the Zimbabwe dollar exists.”
The Zimbabwean dollar was initially used between 1980 and 2009 before being abandoned due to extreme loss in value. This was followed by a decade of a multi-currency system before the government decided to give the Zimbabwean dollar another go in 2019 and make it the country’s only legal currency for a brief period.
Since being reintroduced, the local currency has failed to gain traction, mostly due to hyperinflation. It has the highest denomination of Z$100, which is equivalent to $0.27 at the moment.