By Shongedzai Mugwagwa

RBZ Governor, Dr John P Mangudya has forecasted that the country’s economy will grow by 3 percent this year, a growth that almost tallies the World Bank’s forecast of 2.7 percent growth rate.

Addressing the auditorium on Monetary Policy Statement held at the RBZ Conference room, Dr Mangudya said that he forecasted on a 3 percent growth for the year 2020.

Mangudya said that the economic growth rate is hinged on the improved dividends coming from the mining sector and that the country should work on import reduction strategy so as to ease the spending spree of the much needed foreign currency.

“Zimbabwe needs to learn to feed itself. We are importing everything from maize, cooking oil, carrots, potatoes; at a time we are supposed to be minimising imports,” said Mangudya.

Mangudya said that the country is well on course to successful de-dollarisation and that people should not harbour negative speculation as the process is not an overnight event but rather a gradual process.

“The successful de-dollarisation is evidenced by the declining proportion of forex-denominated assets in the economy relative to locally denominated ones. Transactions worth $459bn were conducted in 2019,” added Mangudya.

Meanwhile, RBZ said that in 2020 they will decisively deal with uneven distribution of money after it emerged that about 200 entities control 50 percent of total bank deposits and therefore pose a threat of speculative currency trading that have a direct relationship with upsetting exchange rate stability.