On Tuesday, Zimbabwe’s central bank announced the launch of a new 50-dollar note, the country’s largest denomination, which is only worth about $0.60 in US money.
The bill’s introduction into circulation, which is insufficient to buy a loaf of bread, has brought up memories of the country’s hyperinflation more than a decade ago. As the price of gold spiraled out of control, denominations reached as high as a $100 trillion bill.
Hopewell Chin’ono, an award-winning journalist and government critic, mocked the new notes, which will be worth only $0.35 in US dollars at the unofficial black market exchange rate.
“It tells you something about inflation in your country if you need 3 notes of your highest currency denomination to buy a premium beer in a supermarket,” tweeted Chin’ono.
The new note is the latest and most valuable in a series introduced from February 2019 as Zimbabwe moved back to using local currency.
US dollars had been used since 2009, when the country trashed its own worthless units after hyperinflation reached 500 billion percent.
Now the new denomination is stoking fears of a return of the kind of hyperinflation that wiped out savings and collapsed the economy, with head-spinning daily leaps in the prices of goods and services.
Last year Zimbabwe’s inflation rate soared to more than 800 percent, but it has begun easing with the June year-on-year rate officially at 106.64 percent, according to the National Statistical Agency.
