Skip to main content

Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank Increases interest rate to 200% amid rising prices

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ), the country’s central bank, has raised its benchmark interest rate from 80 to 200 percent, citing spiralling inflationary pressures amid rising fuel prices.


John Mangudya, the bank’s governor, announced this in a statement following the meeting of the bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC).


The hike brings the cumulative increase in rates this year to 14,000 basis points — the world’s highest.


Mangudya said that an aggressive monetary stance was needed to stop the rise in prices and enhance the circulation of foreign exchanges.


He said the new interest rates will come into effect from July 1, 2022.

According to Mangudya, the MPC also decided to increase the medium-term accommodation interest rate from 50 percent to 100 percent, while for Zimbabwean dollar savings, the minimum deposit rate was increased from 12.5 percent to 40 percent per annum.


He said consumer prices rose 30.7 percent on a month-on-month basis in June, bringing the year-on-year inflation rate to 191.6 percent.


“The committee noted that the increase in inflation was undermining consumer demand and confidence and that if not controlled, it would reverse the significant economic gains achieved over the past two years,” Mangudya said.


Meanwhile, the bank also announced the introduction of gold coins into the market as an alternative store of value.

“The MPC resolved to introduce gold coins into the market as an instrument that will enable investors to store value,” he said.


“The gold coins will be minted by Fidelity Gold Refineries (Private) Limited and will be sold to the public through normal banking channels.”


The Zimbabwean government also said it would legalise the use of the US dollar for the next five years to help steady its local currency.


In Nigeria, the central bank recently hiked its interest rate to 13 percent to tame rising inflation. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hurricane Hits Texas, One Person Reported Dead

Hurricane Harvey hit Texas as a Category 4 storm on Friday, battering the coast with 130-mph winds and torrential rain. It was the strongest hurricane to hit the United States in more than a decade leaving a massive destruction, loss of electricity, wrecked buildings and has so far killed at least one person. Scroll down to see more pictures of the incident:
Post a Comment
Read more

Kenyan Law Court dismisses case of man seeking compensation after his wife eloped with another man from hospital

  A lawsuit filed by a man seeking to be compensated by St Mary's Mission Hospital in Kenya for allowing his wife to leave the hospital with another man after giving birth, has been struck out by a law court.    The appellant had sued the St. Mary's Mission hospital at Kakamega law courts in 2020 seeking general damages from the facility on grounds that the hospital had discharged his wife and allowed her to leave with another man. After delivering and at the time of discharge, the wife of the appellant claimed he was the baby's father.   The court of appeal judges Patrick Kiage, Mumbi Ngugi and Francis Tuiyott sitting at the Kisumu Court of Appeal, empathized with the man, but disagreed that he (the appellant) be compensated by the hospital for not detaining his wife.  They upheld the lower court's judgement which added that there's no remedy that lies in the law for such grievances.   Kiage said;   "I agree that if a man takes the woman he loves to t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Togo prime Minister Komi Klassou resigns

Togo’s prime minister and his government have resigned, the West African nation’s presidency said late Friday. President Faure Gnassingbe congratulated prime minister Komi Selom Klassou and his team for their “economic, political and social efforts and the encouraging results despite the health crisis around the world”, a statement on the presidency’s official website said. Togo has been due for a political reshuffle since Gnassingbe was reelected in February for a fourth term in office, but changes were delayed by the coronavirus pandemic. The president’s election win, which came after a constitutional change allowing him to run, extended more than a half-century of dynastic rule over the former French colony by the Gnassingbe family. The victory was disputed by the main opposition challenger, who has faced official harassment in the wake of the vote. The president has led the country of eight million people since taking over in 2005 following the death of his father Gnass...
Post a Comment
Read more