Civil servants’ salary and bonus payments are soon to be paid out in the Chinese Yuan as it becomes the latest currency to be approved for public transactions in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe has announced that it will make the Chinese yuan legal tender after Beijing confirmed it would cancel $40m in debts.
“They [China] said they are cancelling our debts that are maturing this year and we are in the process of finalising the debt instruments and calculating the debts,” minister Patrick Chinamasa revealed yesterday.
Exporters and the public can now open accounts in yuans, Australian dollars, Indian rupees and Japanese yen, the central bank is on record saying. Zimbabwe abandoned its said “worthless” currency in 2009.
It accepts the US dollar and the South African rand as the main legal tender. Their use has helped to stabilise the economy after world-record inflation threw it into a tailspin.
Independent economist Chris Mugaga last year said the introduction of the Asian currencies would not make a huge difference to Zimbabwe’s struggling economy.
“It is Zimbabwe’s Look East Policy, which has forced this, and nothing else,” he said.
President Robert Mugabe has sought to boost economic relations with Asia after his relations with the West came under strain over his policy of seizing white-owned farms.
Chinese investors have over the past two decades entered diamond mining, co
 
Legal Tender
Meanwhile Chinamasa said Zimbabwe will officially make the Chinese yuan legal tender as it seeks to increase trade with Beijing.
The yuan was added to the basket of the foreign currencies, but its use had until a few months ago not been approved yet for public transactions in the market dominated by the greenback.
Use of the yuan “will be a function of trade between China and Zimbabwe and acceptability with customers in Zimbabwe,” Chinamasa said.
Reserve bank boss John Mangudya is currently in negotiations with the People’s Bank of China “to see whether we can enhance its usage here,” said Chinamasa.