Zimbabwe dollar down to $2 577.06 to the US dollar

The Zimbabwe dollar today plunged by nearly $700 to average $2 577.0564 against the United States dollar narrowing the gap with the black market swipe rate now put at $3 600.

The black market rate is $2 880 while the mobile money rate is $3 200.

The plunge of the Zimbabwe dollar at the last two auctions shows that the central bank is gradually allowing the local currency to float, something that has been demanded by industry.

Offers at today’s auction ranged from $2 500 to $3 100.

A total of 503 bids from small businesses and 344 for large firms were accepted, but only 174 from small businesses and 129 from large firms were allotted a total of US$15.3 million.

Small businesses got only US$1.8 million and large businesses, US$13.5 million. They had applied for US$4.9 million and US$39 million, respectively.

The auction will be disbursing less than US$5 million from next week.

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Charles Rukuni

The Insider is a political and business bulletin about Zimbabwe, edited by Charles Rukuni. Founded in 1990, it was a printed 12-page subscription only newsletter until 2003 when Zimbabwe's hyper-inflation made it impossible to continue printing.