World Bank to help Zimbawe

THE World Bank will in the coming months work with international financial institutions to determine Zimbabwe’s eligibility for support under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries, the multilateral body has said.
According to the documents strategy note, supporting economic recovery for inclusive growth for Zimbabwe for the period 2013-15, the country owes various financial institutions $10,7 billion and the arrears continue to accumulate.
“. . . Zimbabwe would be able to access support from the WBG’s International Development Association exceptional support mechanism for arrears clearance along with domestic and other resources,” World Bank said in the report.
As of January 2013, Zimbabwe owed the World Bank $976,45 million, $127,4 million to the International Monetary Fund, $587 million to the African Development Bank million while the European Investment Bank was owed $244 million.
In the past five years, the World Bank has been supporting the country through trust funds.

Considering that the WB and other countries are still in good relations with Zimbabwe, do you think sanctions are there or there were there and are now being used as a campaigning tool?

Zimbabwe suffers due to Rand fall

It is all over the country now that the Rand’s value has drastically dropped leading to the sky rocketing of the value of the US Dollar. This has hugely impacted on the Zimbabwean economy, considering that Zimbabwe buys the bulk of its imports from south Africa (more than 60 percent). This is a situation that can get worried not only business people, but also the bulk of the citizens. This is because if imports prices are high, the prices of products in the local shops will also rise. However, economic analysts have passed their comments on the situation. Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce president Mr Oswell Binha feels the depreciating rand would make imports from South Africa somewhat less expensive and benefit the economy significantly through informal trade. He said by using the US dollar it actually means getting products cheaper in a rand domain unless there are some changes in the pricing system. But another leading economic analyst said the fall in the US dollar/rand exchange rate would not benefit importers unless local companies were able to buy and sell in the rand currency. This then means to trade with South Africa we use the rand, but still have prices in dollars. Since we use the rand to import, imports will become expensive. If we were exporting it means dollar exports would become more expensive.

Analysts expect the rand to see further weakness, and warn that the dollar rising above R9,2 , of which now it’s at R10.

In such a situation, don’t you think this is the time when Zimbabwe needs to revive its own economy?? Say out your views, let’s discuss