People in Zimbabwe have been spending the night queuing outside banks hoping of getting their hands on their money before new government bonds are introduced. They are fearful of repeat of the economic crisis which saw inflation peak at 80 billion percent. Many lost their life savings and they don’t want that to happen again. Our business correspondent told me more.
Back in 2009 and before that, a 100 trillion Zimdollar note was barely enough to buy a candy bar if you were lucky enough to find one. That problem was eased when Zimbabwe started using the US dollar. Now at the moment, the main currency out there being used is the US dollar but there aren’t enough of them going around. They are in short supply through the country. So people want to get hold of them while they can and of course the government says it’s got a solution, the so-called bond note, not a currency but a surrogate currency, so like a currency. And in theory they’ll have the same value as equivalent dollar amounts. But what people really want is the cash that they can rely on. That’s why they’re queuing up to get it.
I understand people don’t know what these bond notes are gonna look like, so there is a risk of people circulating fake notes.
我了解到,由于民众不知道这些债券式票据会长什么样,所以可能会有人流通假币。
Well, exactly. There are reports that fake notes have come into circulation or are ready to be put into circulation before the official ones. And that’s simply worse than the problem. First of all, you get more notes in circulation. So they won’t want to use them. And that’s the problem. If a currency doesn’t have trust, people won’t want to use it, it will decline in value. So it might start off having a nominal value equivalent to the US dollar, but it’s unlikely to stay that way.
And what happens if people feel they can’t trust these new bond notes?
那如果民众对这些新债券式票据感到不信任,会怎么样呢?
Well, they’ll trade in whatever ways and means they can. In some Zimbabwean cities cash cards have been used more commonly. In some places people are moving more towards more a cashless economy. Now that’s quite strange in a country like Zimbabwe where an awful lot of trade is done on the black economy and relies on cash. But if you don’t have any cash, you have to move to other things. In more rural areas, apparently there’s more bartering going on. So rather than paying for things in cash, you might pay for them in chickens or other agricultural produce that you have. So people will always find a way. They’ll always find something to trade. But if you haven’t got a solid reliable currency, the economy can not work efficiently, and that’s the problem.
Turkey is facing increasing pressure from the EU and the US following the arrest of 12 prominent Kurdish parliamentarians earlier on Friday.
在周五拘捕了12位显要的名库尔德人国会议员后,土耳其面临着持续增加的来自欧盟和美国的压力,
A country that wants to introduce the death penalty, a country that almost every day arrests journalists, politicians, citizens, a country that doesn’t respect human rights, such a country can not get a free ride.