By Takunda Mandura
TRT Afrika, Harare
Zimbabwe's President Emmerson Mnangagwa has extended the the multi-currency system to 2030 which is anchored on the US dollar.
The government had previously said that the multi-currency system would end in 2025. This had triggered uncertainty in the banking sector, with some banks refusing to give loans past 2025.
In a government gazette, President Emmerson Mnangagwa repealed the 2019 order which had given 2025 as a deadline.
"Settlement of any transaction or the payment for goods and services in foreign currency, shall, not with standing Statutory Instrument 142 of 2019, be valid until the 31st December, 2030,” the president said in a government gazzete on Friday.
Almost all bank loans, 94%, are in US dollars according to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe amid waning confidence in the Zimbabwean dollar.
Zimbabwe abandoned its dollar in 2009 to tame inflation, opting instead to use foreign currencies, mostly the U.S. dollar.
The government reintroduced the local currency in 2019, but it rapidly lost value again.
