Browsing: Dollarization

• Zimbabwe Stock Exchange has been one of Africa's best performing stock markets during the years 2019 to 2021
• Zimbabwe's economy officially dollarized for the second time since 2009 when it first abandoned the use of the Zimbabwe dollar.
• The Zimbabwe Stock Exchange is home to some high quality companies that generate consistent quality returns.
• When dollarization first occurred in 2009 companies in Zimbabwe were left poorly capitalized and in need of fresh capital in hard currency.
• The need for fresh capital resulted in a flurry of rights issues from companies listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange which for the most part were poorly subscribed leading to the dilution of existing shareholders who could not pursue their rights when dollarization initially occurred.
• This second phase of dollarization will be like the initial phase for investors who are not prepared for it but will also be a significant opportunity for those with

Zimbabwe’s economic and currency woes run much deeper than the finance minister can allude to. For starters, the country heavily relies on imports; it produces little in the form of manufactured goods for exports. This means that the country’s means of generating income in the form of foreign exchange consist largely of producing and selling raw goods with no value addition.

This phenomenon constrains the country’s ability to generate the foreign exchange it is in desperate need of to help underscore the value of its currency. This is perhaps the biggest stumbling block to the universal adoption and warm reception of the Zimbabwe dollar.

Zimbabwe’s citizens have had unpleasant experiences with the Zimbabwe dollar even before it collapsed in 2009. The country’s citizens have seen numerous bank failures with their savings and receiving no compensation for their losses. This was in 2004 when the banking crisis claimed the scalps of…

Despite these fundamentals, the Zimbabwe dollar has continued to slide against the United States dollar prompting the government to take drastic and unprecedented measures last month which culminated in the prohibition of bank lending (albeit temporarily), the prohibition of third-party international payments, the prohibition of third-party payments to stockbrokers and the introduction of taxes which can be viewed as punitive for investors on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange.

Prior to these stringent measures, the monetary authorities had instituted a policy called willing buyer willing seller to try and narrow the gap between the official foreign currency exchange rate and the parallel market foreign currency exchange rate. This gap between the 2 exchange rates reached its peak in the first week of May 2022 at 153% according to a Zimbabwe publication called the Business Weekly.

The premium between the parallel market rate and the official rate has reduced somewhat to 60%. The…