Zimbabwe will soon introduce a gold-backed digital currency meant to stabilize the local unit from its continued depreciation against the dollar, state-run Sunday Mail reported, citing central bank governor John Mangudya.

This will allow those holding small amounts of Zimbabwe dollars to exchange their money for digital tokens to store value and hedge against currency volatility, the report said.

The tokens will help ensure that those with low amounts of currency can buy the gold units “so that we leave no one and no place behind,” Mangudya told the Sunday Mail.

Last year, the southern African country also introduced gold coins in bid to mop up excess liquidity and stabilize the local unit. Officially, the local currency trades at Z$1,000.4 against the dollar but readily changes hands at Z$1,750 on the streets of the capital. 

Mangudya said current exchange rate volatility was due to expectations of increased foreign currency supply in the market when the tobacco auction season started in March, the Sunday Mail reported.

To date, since the start of the auction season, Zimbabwe has exported 54.9 kilograms of tobacco valued at $307 million. During the same period last year, it had shipped 57 million kilograms valued at $295.5 million.

Zimbabwe abandoned its currency in 2009, replacing it mainly with the US dollar after an episode of hyperinflation rendered the local money worthless. The Zimbabwe dollar was reintroduced in 2019 in a bid to revive the stagnating economy, but the government in June decided to make the greenback legal tender again to try and tame rampant price increases.

We live in a world where facts and fiction get blurred

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By Dr Mercy Alu

I am a mother, HR consultant, author, Goodwill Ambassador with Globcal (a partner with UN on SDG's in Africa), coordinator with International Association of African Authors/Scholars, a songwriter/recording artist, researcher, and social anthropologist of sorts! I believe we should all live our best lives, and enjoy helping organizations and individuals perform better. I and my guest authors love to share information about the world around us; African events & Entertainment, plus lots of good information about Health, Wellness, Family, Book Publishing, Business, Relationships, Culture, Folk Stories, and much more. I speak several languages including French and Igbo (a West African Language). I enjoy research, writing, reading, singing and finding out lots of things about, well, lots of things! Knowledge is power. So information and knowledge gained from experiences, observation, all flavor the things I write about in the exciting blog portion of this website. Feel free to drop me a line or two, I also want to hear from you!

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