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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: steve dietrich who wrote (238452)	8/1/2007 3:24:54 AM
From: Elroy	Respond to of 281500

I was in Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe about 5 years ago for vacation. One US dollar got you between 120 and 250 Zim dollars, depending on where you exchanged it. Zimbabwe issues $200,000 note Agencies Published: August 01, 2007, 09:25 gulfnews.com Harare: Zimbabwe's central bank will issue a higher denomination bank note, a $200,000 note, on Wednesday to cope with the hyperinflation ravaging the southern African country. President Robert Mugabe's government lopped three zeroes off the local currency a year ago\| but Zimbabweans still need to carry huge wads of cash for basic transactions. In a statement on Tuesday, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe said a $200,000 note would come into circulation from August 1. Currently, the highest banknote in circulation is Z$100,000. The new note is worth one US dollar on Zimbabwe's black market for foreign currency and about $13 at the official rate. The IMF said on Tuesday Zimbabwe's year-on-year inflation rate could top 100,000 per cent by the end of the year. Last month, the government ordered prices to be cut for all goods and services and effected a price freeze after prices had risen by as much as 300 per cent within a week. This has deepened an economic crisis, marked by severe food, fuel and foreign currency shortages as well as high unemployment. The price blitz led to hundreds of business people and traders being arrested and fined for overcharging or failing to display prices. It has worsened shortages of most basic goods such as the staple maize-meal, cooking oil, meat and sugar. Mugabe's government says the crackdown is necessary to bring order in commerce and industry, and to stop what he says is a drive by opponents to try to oust him through economic sabotage. Mugabe, 83 and in power since independence from Britain in 1980, denies he has run down one of Africa's most promising economies with his controversial policies. He says the economy is a victim of Western opponents seeking to overthrow his ZANU-PF government for seizing and redistributing white-owned commercial farms to landless blacks.