Portal:Zimbabwe/Featured article/April 2008

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The dollar is the currency of Zimbabwe. It is subdivided into 100 cents. It is normally abbreviated with the dollar sign $, or alternatively Z$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies.

The first Zimbabwean dollar was introduced in 1980 and replaced the Rhodesian dollar at par. The present ISO 4217 code was ZWD. At the time of its introduction, the Zimbabwean dollar was still worth more than the U.S. dollar, with ZWD 0.68 = USD 1.00. However, the currency's value eroded rapidly over the years. On 26 July 2006, the parallel market value of the dollar fell to one million to the British pound [1].

In October 2005, the head of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, Dr. Gideon Gono, announced "Zimbabwe will have a new currency next year." New banknotes and coins were to replace the then current Zimbabwean dollar. Gono did not provide a name for this new currency. In June 2006, Deputy Finance Minister David Chapfika stated that Zimbabwe had to achieve macroeconomic stability (i.e., double digit inflation) before any new currency was introduced.