Here Today... Gone To Hell!

Zimbabwe launches $200,000 note

Zimbabwe is to start circulating a new 200,000 Zimbabwe dollar note, in a bid to tackle the country's inflation, the highest in the world.

The new note, issued by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe from Wednesday, can buy 1kg (2.2lb) of sugar.

Food and fuel shortages have become common as the government relies more heavily on imports, pushing prices to new heights.

The official annual rate of inflation in Zimbabwe is nearing 5,000%.

In practice, this means the price of a loaf of bread costs 50 times more in cash than it did a year ago.

Shortages

The new note is worth US$13 at the official exchange rate or $1 on the black market.

Zimbabwe's government has created a commission to find a way to control soaring living costs.

But correspondents say that as long as Zimbabwe has a shortage of staple foods, including maize, food shortages are likely to continue.

Critics have blamed President Robert Mugabe's policies, especially the seizure of white-owned farms, for ordinary Zimbabweans' hardship.

For his part, President Mugabe has accused foreign governments of trying to interfere in Zimbabwe's affairs.

The new banknote comes after International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts that by the end of 2007, prices will be 1,000 times higher than they were a year earlier, Reuters news agency reports.

"Price controls that are being enforced are likely to exacerbate shortages and ultimately fuel further inflation," said Bio Tchane, director of the IMF's Africa department, who described Zimbabwe's prospects as "bleak".

BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6924062.stm)

In a word: Wow.

and zimbabwe is not even in the 50 least developed countries .... must be rich !

In Vietnam go to withdrawl $100 buck and you end up with $1, 000, 000 dong!

Wallets there are 5x the normal size!  : ok:

actually its more like 1,614,500 dong per 100USD........ but im not sure what currency your converting from......  so it would be more like 2,207,638 dong per 100EUR or 3,277,104 dong per 100GBP....... geeeeezee for how shit the USD is doing these days your info must be some out of date!

The point I was making was that $100 bucks isn't exactly 1 note in Vietnamese currency - the dong.

Withdrawl $100 in dong and you end up with a whole wad of notes.

I thought my wallet size analogy was pretty good.

Wow, one hundred bucks sure gets you a lot of dong. I've gotta tell Lisa about this.

well for anyone that has any understanding of forgien currencies then the surprise at it not being worth anything close to that of a domestic $100 resulting in far more bills would not be a surprise........... the surprise is when you got to the states and use canadian tire money and use it as legal tender (CT money for everyone not familiar with it is a coupon that you receive back from the cashier depending on your purchase amount and it comes in various sizes of demoniations and can be used as a cost offset as actual currency in any CT store)

It's sad that thru the tyranny of that despot, Zimbabwe has gone from supplying food to the rest of Africa, to having it imported.

I COULD NOT AGREE MORE

back in the day, when in italy the currency was "lira" (before euro) they had the 1000s sistem.
like a 10 000 liras would cover a cappuccino and a sandwich.
the notes were going far beyond 200 000 liras if I remember correctly.