Economy to contract by 20% in US$ terms

ZIMBABWE’s economy will contract by 20% in US dollar terms to US$20 billion by year end due to worsening economic conditions, new estimates released by Treasury show.

In his “State of the Economy” address presented to Parliament on Wednesday, Finance minister Mthuli Ncube said following the adoption of the RTGS dollar in February as the currency of reference, his ministry rebased the GDP value accordingly to RTGS$70,3 billion for 2019 from RTGS$40 billion last year.

Using the official exchange rate from the central bank of US$1:RTGS$3,52 this translates to nearly US$20 billion down from government’s US$25 billion GDP value for Zimbabwe last year.

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