Queues have formed outside banks in Zimbabwe as people hope to get hold of the country’s first Zimbabwe dollar notes to be issued since 2009.
The currency was scrapped a decade ago because of hyperinflation when prices were almost doubling every day.
Zimbabwe’s central bank hopes the new notes will ease a severe cash shortage as the country suffers a deepening economic crisis.
The bank has played down fears that the move will fuel further inflation.
Currently inflation is thought to be about 300%.
This figure is an estimate according to the latest data published by the International Monetary Foundation. The Zimbabwean government has stopped publishing an official figure itself.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe insists that the two- and five-Zimbabwe dollar notes will not increase overall money supply. The cash is supposed to replace money that was stored electronically.
Why didn’t Zimbabwe have its own currency?
Since the country scrapped its own currency in 2009, Zimbabweans had relied at various times on US dollars, South African rands, as well as other foreign currencies, an electronic currency called the RTGS dollar, and what are called bond notes.
