Zimbabwe’s newly inaugurated president, Emmerson Mnangagwa says their new economic policy will be directed at creating ‘jobs, jobs and more jobs.’
But the International Monetary Fund says “the economic situation in Zimbabwe remains very difficult.”
“The country’s needs to act quickly to rein in high government spending and deal with large international debt it has defaulted on.
Zimbabwe has not been able to borrow from international lenders since 1999 when it started defaulting on its debt, and has $1.75 billion rand in foreign arrears.
An estimated 3 million Zimbabweans are in neighbouring South Africa, and it is routine to find a former schoolteacher working as a waitress at a Johannesburg restaurant.
Tens of thousands of Zimbabweans are in Britain.
And the 13 million who stayed behind in Zimbabwe have coped with an unemployment rate estimated at higher than 80 percent.
Collet Marimo, trained as an engineer but is working as a clothes vendor.
“I had to do this to, in order to, supplement my income, you know, business hasn’t been good for the companies, so basically trying to put food on the table for my family.”
But even for those who have employment, earning money in Zimbabwe’s currency – the bond – poses its own problems.
Reacting to shortages of the US dollar by introducing its own currency for the first time since 2009, in November 2016, the government issued a new currency called bond notes.
The bonds sparked a mix of hope and apprehension among a population desperate for a solution to the cash crisis but in 2008 and 2009 the state’s central bank printed so much of its currency, that the country experienced mind-boggling hyperinflation that reached 500 billion percent, according to the International Monetary Fund.
For more read the full of article at The Euronews.
