Zimbabwe’s central bank launches gold coins to general public
Zimbabwe’s central bank has launched gold coins in an effort to curb soaring inflation amid a slump in it’s currency.
Each coin will be priced at the international market rate for an ounce of gold plus 5% for production costs.
The coin is called “Mosi-oa-Tunya” which means “The Smoke Which Thunders” and refers to Victoria Falls, on the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia.
Zimbabwe’s dollar slumped in value against major currencies this year and it will be possible to use the coins in shops.
Hyperinflation forced it to abandon the Zimbabwe dollar in 2009, and it opted instead to use foreign currencies, mainly the US dollar.
During the worst of the crisis the government stopped publishing official inflation figures but one estimate put the inflation rate at 89.7 sextillion percent year on year in mid-November 2008.
At the time, the one hundred billion Zimbabwe dollar bank note was seen as an emblem of the nation’s economic collapse.
The local currency was reintroduced a decade later but it has rapidly lost value again.
