HARARE, April 7 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwe's new currency -- the Zimbabwe Gold (ZiG) -- will start circulating in the economy on April 30, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor John Mushayavanhu has said.

In a statement issued Saturday night, Mushayavanhu said the new notes and coins were already under production while the old Zimbabwean dollar remained in circulation for 20 more days.

He said as advised in the Monetary Policy Statement (MPS) and Statutory Instrument 60 of 2024 issued Friday, the transacting public has a transition period of up to 21 days to convert their Zimbabwean dollar notes and coins to ZiG.

"The ZiG notes and coins are by these presents declared to be in production and will start circulating in the economy on 30 April 2024 to allow the Reserve Bank to undertake an intensive educational and awareness campaign on the key security features of the ZiG notes and coins," he said.

Mushayavanhu stated that the campaign aimed to engage a broad spectrum of society in line with the RBZ's financial inclusion efforts. He also reassured the public that the central bank was taking all necessary steps to prevent any prejudice and ensure value.

Retail shops and other service providers on Saturday demanded only cash transactions which are predominantly in U.S. dollars since most people have not been accessing local notes.

The governor said the banking sector and Payment Systems Providers had by Saturday made satisfactory progress towards converting Zimbabwean dollar balances to ZiG balances since the announcement of the MPS the previous day.

"The conversion process will continue for other economic sectors until Friday, 12 April 2024. Thereafter, the Reserve Bank expects that all the online payment platforms will be operating smoothly for all transactions in the economy," he said.

ZiG will be backed by a basket of foreign exchange reserves and precious minerals, mainly gold and notes will be in denominations of 1, 2, 5, 10, 50, 100 and 200. In addition, there will be half and quarter ZiG coins.

Mushayavanhu said the central bank was starting with total reserves of 285 million U.S. dollars to back up the new currency, made up of 100 million U.S. dollars in NOSTRO balances and 2,522 kg of gold worth 185 million U.S. dollars. He added that the entire local currency component of reserve money in local currency was at 2.6 trillion ZWL, equivalent to 80 million U.S. dollars at the current interbank rate. Enditem

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