Zimbabwe prints higher bills to match runaway inflation

Inflation-hit Zimbabwe today unveiled new high denomination banknotes it hopes will ease chronic cash shortages.

With inflation forecast by independent experts to hit 100,000% by the New Year, the central bank issued 250,000, 500,000 and 750,000 Zimbabwe dollar bills.

Gideon Gono, governor of the Reserve Bank, said the existing 200,000 Zimbabwe dollar bill was being withdrawn because it was being hoarded by “cash barons” for illegal deals.

Queues at banks and ATMs lengthened today but banks rationed money to 5m Zimbabwe dollars per customer, about enough to buy a take out hamburger amid acute shortages of food, fuel and most basic goods.

Zimbabwe is embroiled in its worst economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1980. Unemployment is around 80%, and political unrest is high. Foreign investment, loans and development aid have dried up.

Official inflation is 8,000%, the highest in the world.

But the International Monetary Fund predicted it would reach 100,000% by the end of the year.

President Robert Mugabe, 83, who has ruled Zimbabwe for 27 years, blames the crisis on Western sanctions and rejects criticism that mismanagement caused the meltdown.

The official exchange rate is almost 62,000 Zimbabwe dollars to a single pound sterling.