Exporters partly to blame for liquidity crisis

Zimbabwe’s exporters were partly to blame for the liquidity crisis in the country because they were not repatriating their proceeds on time, acting central bank governor Charity Dhliwayo said in her monetary policy statement released yesterday.

She said though poor exports and unfavourably high imports were largely to blame for the liquidity crisis; the situation was worsened by delays in repatriation of proceeds from exports.

Dhliwayo said overdue export receipts stood at US$318 million at the end of December.

Another problem was the absence of an interbank market which died when the country switched to the United States dollar because the central bank was no longer lender of last resort.

She said this was evidenced by the fact that some banks had sizeable surpluses while others had acute shortages. The average money market surpluses exceeded US$250 million in 2012 and 2013.

Subdued inter-bank market activity was compounded by the lack of acceptable collateral on the part of banking institutions requiring interbank borrowing.

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