OREANDA-NEWS The Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, John Mushayawanu, announced the introduction of a new national currency in the country, which will be Zimbabwean gold (ZiG). This is reported by TASS.

It is noted that all reserves of the local dollar will be transferred to the new means of payment, and it will be provided with reserves of foreign currency and precious metals mined in the country. According to the head of the Central Bank, the new exchange rate will be 13.5 Zimbabwean gold per US dollar.

Now, against the background of inflation raging in the country, 22.5 thousand Zimbabwean dollars are given at the official exchange rate for a unit of the American currency, and the US dollar can be bought from hands for 36 thousand dollars of Zimbabwe, Kommersant writes.

Zimbabwe's economy entered a phase of hyperinflation last summer. This happened after the country's authorities relaxed control over the exchange rate of the national currency. According to Bloomberg, already in January, 100 large bills had to be counted out to buy bread in the country for local dollars, and Finance Minister Mtuli Nkube and President Emmerson Mnangagwa accused private business, the stock exchange, banks, Western sanctions against local politicians, as well as one of Africa's largest insurance companies of undermining the exchange rate.

Previously, the Zimbabwean dollar has already set records of falling exchange rate. Since 2007, the price growth rate has been thousands of percent per month, and reached its peak in mid-November 2008, amounting to 79.6 billion percent.