by Christopher Makaza

Renowned economist and Monetary Policy Committee member, Mr Eddie Cross has glorified the 2020 Mid-Term Monetary Policy Statement (MPS) by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ).

Mr Cross noted that the reduction in inflation month on month in July and August, signals that by end of year the country should be back into single digit inflation and that 2021 will see a resumption of low inflation and steady prices and exchange rates.

Mr Cross noted that the country is maintaining and even strengthening both the fiscal and balance of payments surpluses, which a great achievement."The former largely because of inflation, because economic recovery is still not underway, the latter because our exports and foreign inflows are up by 17 per cent and our expenditures are down by 6 per cent. Strengthening our positive balance of payments for the third year in a row is quite an achievement after all those years of fiscal delinquency," said Mr Cross.

The economist further noted that the inflation being experienced in 2020 is quite different from the hyperinflation era from 2004 to 2008, which was due to the reckless printing of money by RBZ.

"The inflation we have seen since July 2018 is due to the depreciation of the local currency. That was unavoidable in the early days as we had to adjust local values and incomes so that they more accurately reflected real economic factors," he said

Mr Cross said the growth in exports reflects the fact that the country is once again regionally competitive and is now able to export into global markets on a profitable basis.

 "This comes at a time when commodity markets are all reflecting some stability and even modest growth after the markets fell to very low levels in 2018-2019. This improves the outlook of our industries," he said.

Mr Cross said it was time for industry to step up to the plate and start exploiting these new opportunities and that it was also the time for new Foreign Direct Investments (FDI).

Mr Cross said the decision by RBZ to extend the coverage of the electronic monitoring of the Banks and their millions of transactions every day to the new players in the market was a sound decision and was essential to the management of the new era that is starting to open up in global markets. He said it was time to review the country's tax system to take advantage of the electronic revolution and to bring the country's tax authorities into the 21st century.

RBZ continues with efforts to boost the country's economy and restoring sanity to the market and is slowly, but surely winning the war.