Zimbabwe says its tight monetary policy is paying off

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe is upbeat about its tight monetary policy and says it is paying off allowing the bank to reduce interest rates for the second time this year with inflation dropping from 101.5% in January to 87.6% last month.

The key Interest rate was pegged at 200% at the beginning of the year. It was initially reduced to 150% and has further been cut to 140%.

The country received US$1.78 billion in foreign currency between 1 January and 15 March but paid out only US$1.69 billion.

Local transactions amounted to $10.6 trillion in the five months from October while transactions in US dollars stood at US$7.5 billion during the same period.

Below is the full monetary policy statement released last week:

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