ZIMBABWE’S central bank deputy governor Jesimen Chipika says the nation is grappling with symptomatic challenges instead of tackling structural problems in the economy as she that the multi-currency system will comeback.
“We are grappling as a nation to separate the structural challenges versus the symptomatic challenges and a lot of times it is the symptomatic challenges that have appeared more frequent than the structural.
We should go back to addressing the structural challenges and I would want to agree with those of you that keep on saying let’s go back to production. The real economy is on production. Those are the structural issues of the economy,” she said.
Chipika made it clear that there were no prospects of Zimbabwe returning to the multi-currency regime.
There were murmurs from the audience when she insisted that prices of basic commodities were no longer rising at a brisk pace on a month-on-month basis.
Zimbabwe’s inflation rate was last recorded at 300% in August and computed at 353% in September 2019.
Just last week, the Public Accountants and Auditors Board (PAAB) advised that there was broad consensus within the accounting and auditing professions to apply International Accounting Standard 29 (Financial Reporting in Hyperinflationary Economies), when reporting on accounts in Zimbabwe.
Chipika said the introduction of the Zimdollar has seen a sharp decline in the parallel market activities and an increase in the demand for the local currency.
On the untimely introduction of the Zimbabwean dollar and the outlawing of the US dollar as a legal tender in June, she said there was no way an inter-bank exchange rate was going to co-exist with a multi-currency regime.
“The opportunities for arbitrage were totally out of control.This led us to the june 24 decision. Multicurrency was no longer working in our country, we had to go back to the mono-currency. The Zimdollar helped hold other worries of post-dollarisation,” she said.
Chipika said the US dollar, a strong currency, made local production uncompetitive.The Zimdollar’s introduction has also assisted companies to re-enter the export market, she added.
Chipika said the monocurrency was the new normal for Zimbabwe although it might not be perfect.
“We have seen from analysis that it was very difficult for exporters when we had a 1:1 parity policy. The exporters are our blood,” Chipika said.
“Remember the bond notes were in produce as an incentive.”
She said exporters were failing to enter the other markets as they were producing in a high-value currency.
“The Zimbabwe dollar may not be perfect but we are getting there,” Chipika said.
“We have seen the reduced trading of foreign currency on the black market and we are seeing stronger demand for the local currency.” – ZimInd
