How the country functions without a local currency? Imagine one's local currency collapses and not even your local storekeeper is willing to trade it, how will you buy foods, stuffs heck how would the whole monetary system keeps functioning.
Well, the situation sounds nightmarish but it is bitter fact for the people of Zimbabwe, which since the collapse of the Zimbabwean dollar and its circulation halted, are forced to act as foreign exchange dealers.
According to CNN, the Zimbabwe locals have to manage not one, two, three but nine currencies for trading purpose, including the U.S. dollar, Australian dollar, South African rand, Botswana pula, euro, British pound, Japanese yen, Chinese yuan and Indian rupee.
"Most currencies are for trading purposes," Zimbabwe Reserve Bank Governor John Mangudya said. "50 percent of our trade is with China and South Africa so we need to allow trading in many currencies."
However, the U.S. dollar is Zimbabwe's official "reserve currency," but traders accept a variety of currencies, almost any currency in fact, but at a far higher rate than the given official rate.
The country’s currency crisis started in 2000 has taken its toll on the economy. The inflation stood at 230 million percent in early 2009, the last official figures.
The price of goods here changes by the minute, as Shingi Munyeza, chairman of Vinal Investments, says that he would "pay for coffee before it was made because by the time you sat down to drink it, the price would have increased."
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