Zim dollar eases 4,36pc




Spread the love

The Zimbabwe dollar eased another 4,36 percent in yesterday’s Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe auction to $97,1361 to the US dollar from $93,081 last week.

This has taken the total decline in the weighted average at the auction, basically the official rate for the US dollar in local currency to 10,8 percent this month from the $87,6653 since the end of last month.

The fall has largely been due to the Reserve Bank resetting the lower limit for bids that are allotted foreign currency. 

For most of this year all accepted bids of $85 or more were allotted foreign currency. This was still the case in the first October auction when the rate slid around 1 percent to $88,5532.

However, on October 12 only bids of $88,50 and above were allotted currency, seeing the weighted average slid 1,72 percent to $90,0792. This also saw 568 bids on both the SME and main auctions that had been accepted, that is with the all the correct paper work in place, not being allotted currency.

Last week bids below $90 were not allotted currency, seeing the rate fall 3,33 percent to $93,081. But this time only 73 bids that were deemed acceptable in terms of following the rules failed to be allotted currency. Yesterday the allot limit jumped to $95. 

Despite the top bidder on the SME auction offering $110 and on the main auction $112, there were a fair number of bidders who were offering between $90, what had secured an allotment last week, and just under $95.

This saw 166 of the 568 accepted bids on the main auction failing to secure foreign currency, and 401 of the 1 281 accepted bids on the SME auction. 

But 1 283 bidders on both auctions had bid at least $95 and so had secured their currency allotment.

More than US$40 million was allotted, US$31,71 million on the main auction and US$9,05 million on the SME auction, somewhat lower than the US$47,7 million allotted in total last week.  – Herald