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Zimbabwe has launched its own currency for the first time since the country's dollar was abandoned 7 years ago due to hyperinflation. The new currency has led to the largest protests in a decade since President Mugabe
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has always steered clear of referring to the new bond notes as currency. For ordinary Zimbabweans, memories of the collapse and demise of the Zimbabwean dollar in 2009, and the hyperinflation that caused its destruction, still rankle. So, it's a question of "when is a currency not a currency?" Withdraw from a bank today in Zimbabwe and you'll be issued with bond notes, which are officially interchangeable with the US dollar at a rate of one to one. You can take the notes to the shops and exchange them for goods. All very well and good, you'd think. But what a currency needs is confidence, and on the streets of Harare there seems to be precious little of that.
