Zimbabwe gets 961 mln USD from IMF

HARARE, August 25 — The Zimbabwean government announced Tuesday that it has received its allocation of Special Drawing Rights (SDR) from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) amounting to 961 million U.S. dollars.
In a joint statement, both Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube and Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor John Mangudya confirmed the injection of the SDR funds into Zimbabwe’s central bank account.
“We would like to advise the public that Zimbabwe has received SDR 677.4 million (961 million U.S. dollars) from the International Monetary Fund under the IMF’s USD 650 billion SDR allocation earmarked to provide additional liquidity to the global financial system,” the Zimbabwean officials said.
Ncube and Mangudya said the immediate impact of the financial support from the IMF is to increase the foreign exchange reserves of Zimbabwe.
“This will go a long way in buttressing the stability of our domestic currency. The funds will be used prudently, with utmost accountability to support the social sectors namely health, education, and the vulnerable groups,” the officials said.
The funds will also be deployed toward productive sectors, including industry, agriculture, mining, infrastructure investment covering roads and housing, and foreign currency reserves and contingency fund, to support the domestic currency and macro-economic stability.
Zimbabwe cleared its outstanding financial arrears with the IMF amounting to 108 million dollars in 2016, after being in continuous arrears since 2001.
However, the country still does not qualify to receive concessionary loans from the multilateral financial institution due to other arrears to the World Bank, the African Development Bank, European Investment Bank and bilateral creditors, which the IMF says must be cleared first before it can lend to Zimbabwe. (Xinhua)