Zimbabwe is living dangerously

Zimbabwe is living dangerously. It has import cover of only two and a half weeks which means its foreign currency reserves can only buy imports for half a month.

A country is normally required to have at least three months import cover.

Deputy Finance Minister Terence Mukupe told the Senate last week that Zimbabwe was literary living from hand to mouth.

“What we have to do like I said, we have to have a situation where our import cover moves to at least six months,” he said in response to a question from Senator Bheki Sibanda.

“Therefore, we have to make sure that we grow our exports.  When we are talking about growing our exports, it is really two industries, on the mining front and on the agricultural front. 

“The thing that we have got most of the control over is really what is going on in agriculture.  That is why you find from a policy point of view, most of the resources within this country and most of the thinking around productivity is actually centred around agriculture.”

Mukupe also said it was only when the country had six months import cover that it might think of bringing back the Zimbabwe dollar.

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