By Nyamayaro Chitsinde
The country’s inflation rate continues to skyrocket to unprecedented levels with the Chinese businessmen accused of fueling its ballooning and rendering the local currency useless, ZiMining can reveal.
The Zim dollar continues to tumble against the US dollar with the official exchange at US$1:ZW$120 while the black market rate was at US$1:ZW$235.
A leading economic analyst Gift Mugano has said the local currency is heading for a crash anytime before mid-year.
He claimed that the Chinese were driving black market rate as they are paid in local currency which they cannot remit to their country.
Chinese are major players in the economy with vast interest in mining, agriculture and manufacturing.
“When you pay Chinese construction companies in RTGS (local currency) do you think they will take RTGS back to China? They will go to Roadport (the parallel market) to buy United States Dollars),” he said.
The Chinese continued to be on the receiving end after civil society organisations recently blamed them for causing untold suffering on locals in areas they were operating. They are accused of wantonly displacing local villagers from their ancestral land to pave way for mining operations.
However, Chinese ambassador to Harare poured cold water on the claims saying that the Chinese were immensely contributing to the growth of the economy. The ambassador said without the Chinese assistance, the economy would have crashed a long time ago.
