RBZ Top Official Defends 1:1 Bond Note Exchange Rate

A Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) senior director said the country is not ready to liberalise the bond note exchange rate or introduce a new currency as this will raise inflation and worsen the economic situation.

Speaking during a business leaders’ seminar organised by the Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Bulawayo on Sunday, RBZ senior director William Kavila defended the 1:1 US$/RTGS or bond note official exchange rate. Said Kavila:

We cannot liberalise the (bond note) exchange rate now because our economic fundamentals are not right. If we liberalise the bond note, inflation will rise by 600 per cent creating more economic challenges than we have now. This will take us back to the 2008 inflation where money lost value overnight and nobody here wants to hear of that period. We need to first improve on our reserves and have import cover for at least three months and we are looking at about $1 billion of import cover.

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