Zambia's kwacha jumps 5 percent to 6-week high as firms sell dollars to pay taxes

LUSAKA: Zambia's kwacha climbed as much as 5 percent to its strongest in nearly 6 weeks against the dollar on Wednesday, propelled by dollar sales by companies chasing the local currency to make quarterly tax payments.

The kwacha touched a session high of 10.2100 per dollar, before pulling back to 10.4900 in volatile trade but was still up 2.3 percent from Tuesday's close.

"Firms are buying kwacha to comply with quarterly tax obligations on top of the usual salary payments at month-end," said NKC Economics southern Africa analyst Irmgard Erasmus.