Economics
Zimbabwe Dollar Dearth Causes Shortages, Return of Inflation
- Lack of cash forces prices of goods up, curbs supplies
- Central bank’s dollar-pegged bond notes can’t pay importers
A man shows the new notes introduced by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe in Harare, on Nov. 28, 2016.
Photographer: Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP PhotoThis article is for subscribers only.
Zimbabwe’s money shortage has seen card and mobile-money payments eclipse cash sales at the nation’s retailers, throttling suppliers’ stock of hard currency needed to put goods on shelves and forcing up food prices.
Cash transactions have shrunk to about 2 percent of daily takings across the 33-store Spar Zimbabwe chain, from 60 percent a year ago, Managing Director Terence Yeatman said. Consumer prices as measured by the statistics agency rose 0.1 percent in August from a year earlier, it said on Sept. 15.