News / National
Challenges facing Zimbabwe's foreign exchange auction
27 Jul 2021 at 07:16hrs | Views
IT is clear that the auction for foreign exchange is in trouble. The arrears now stand at over US$200 million. That is equivalent to nearly Z$18 billion and the delays are having a serious impact on company cashflows and confidence in the system.
While the small and medium enterprises auction is playing a key role in the economy and is giving the companies access to foreign exchange at favourable exchange rates and is not subject to the same delays, this is only 20% of the market. The stable exchange rate and the more readily available foreign exchange has had a significant impact on the wider economy. It has also restrained inflationary pressures.
But the fact is the determination by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) to maintain the allocation of more foreign exchange than is actually available on the market and now to try and fund the shortfall by asking banks to finance the gap from their own resources (essentially a line of credit to the RBZ) is not the solution.
Most recently, the attempt to fund the shortfall by asking banks to use Afreximbank Letters of credit as a means of funding the required imports is simply exacerbating the crisis.
This is being resisted by companies involved as it increases costs and does not improve the cashflows. It also changes the credit terms for the imports involved and this is creating difficulties.
The reality is that the auction simply does not have adequate funding to meet demand.
Normally in a real market this would result in the weighted average exchange rate simply depreciating until demand equaled supply. There is resistance to this in government and RBZ because of the implications for inflation.
One immediate consequence of the widening gap between supply and demand is the rapid depreciation in informal market exchange rates which are approach ing $150 to US$1 after being stable at about $100 to US$1 for the first six months of the auction. This situation needs some analysis even if the facts are not known or understood.
In the formal sector, total foreign exchange inflows are about US$6,5 billion. Total outflows are growing in response to the now expanding domestic economy and are probably approaching US$6 billion. Most observers agree that we have a small surplus in our balance of payments.
But this is far from the whole story. We know that our national output of gold is about 70 tonnes a year. Of this only 20 tonnes is traded formally, the rest is purchased and sold informally.
If this involves 50 tonnes a year then this trade is worth US$3 billion or more. We know this is traded largely in South Africa where some of the gold is sold in local markets and the rest is exported to other countries, especially the UAE.
In South Africa, some of this the gold is sold for rand and this generates very substantial rand balances which are then "sold" in Zim dollars to local importers at a premium.
The Zim dollars then used to buy US dollars to buy gold from the informal sector. It is impossible to determine what impact this has on the country's balance of payments but it must be considerable and this explains why the Zimdollar rate for US dollar cash is so much higher than Nostro transactions.
It is well-known that the South African refineries declare much of this smuggled gold as "melted Jewellery" and claim back valueadded tax (vat). This enables the informal traders to actually pay a very high price for gold on the domestic market.
In addition to this activity, the extent of smuggling of imports to avoid taxes and to meet domestic demand for everything from spare parts to food and beverages, using what are called "runners", is also impossible to estimate, but it is considerable.
Our border controls are totally subverted. This is not isolated to Zimbabwe but is well-known in all African States, in Tanzania it is estimated that 60% of imports are smuggled.
This entire system is funded by cash transactions and where people do not have access to currency they buy their needs on the informal market.
This suggests that total inflows of hard currencies are well in excess of what is recorded from the formal markets. Some of this may well emanate from the rand trade based on both remittances and the gold trade but it is also clear that remittances in all forms are much larger than is currently thought.
In the horn of Africa, where up to half the population now lives abroad, remittances are anything up to half total foreign exchange inflows. Average inflows are estimated at nearly US$1 000 per annum, per adult working in the diaspora. Zimbabwe has at least 5 million adults working in the diaspora and their combined incomes far exceed the gross domestic product (GDP) of their homeland. It is most unlikely that their remittances to their families are as low as the official numbers suggest — about $240 a year.
This is supported by the physical evidence of remittance supported activity. The Education ministry estimates that US$1,2 billion a year comes into the school system from remittances. The building boom now underway further supports the considerable inflows for this purpose.
This would explain the very substantial trade in US dollars in the informal economy and these volumes are mostly traded outside the banking system. In many African States it is possible to raise significant foreign currency resources from informal traders when the banks are unable to fund even a fraction of this activity.
But the fact that Nostro balances in real hard currency have reached US$1,6 billion in Zimbabwe, confirms that fact that overall, the country has a hard currency surplus.
If, therefore, we were to abandon the foreign currency auction at the RBZ and to allow a normal foreign exchange market to operate with our own dollar as the sole means of local trade, then it is clear that the resulting exchange rates would be much stronger than they are today on the auction. This is supported by the long tradition in this country of the local currency trading at rates well above 2 to 1 in USD to Z$.
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Eddie Cross is an economist and former MP for Bulawayo South. He writes here in his personal capacity.
While the small and medium enterprises auction is playing a key role in the economy and is giving the companies access to foreign exchange at favourable exchange rates and is not subject to the same delays, this is only 20% of the market. The stable exchange rate and the more readily available foreign exchange has had a significant impact on the wider economy. It has also restrained inflationary pressures.
But the fact is the determination by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) to maintain the allocation of more foreign exchange than is actually available on the market and now to try and fund the shortfall by asking banks to finance the gap from their own resources (essentially a line of credit to the RBZ) is not the solution.
Most recently, the attempt to fund the shortfall by asking banks to use Afreximbank Letters of credit as a means of funding the required imports is simply exacerbating the crisis.
This is being resisted by companies involved as it increases costs and does not improve the cashflows. It also changes the credit terms for the imports involved and this is creating difficulties.
The reality is that the auction simply does not have adequate funding to meet demand.
Normally in a real market this would result in the weighted average exchange rate simply depreciating until demand equaled supply. There is resistance to this in government and RBZ because of the implications for inflation.
One immediate consequence of the widening gap between supply and demand is the rapid depreciation in informal market exchange rates which are approach ing $150 to US$1 after being stable at about $100 to US$1 for the first six months of the auction. This situation needs some analysis even if the facts are not known or understood.
In the formal sector, total foreign exchange inflows are about US$6,5 billion. Total outflows are growing in response to the now expanding domestic economy and are probably approaching US$6 billion. Most observers agree that we have a small surplus in our balance of payments.
But this is far from the whole story. We know that our national output of gold is about 70 tonnes a year. Of this only 20 tonnes is traded formally, the rest is purchased and sold informally.
If this involves 50 tonnes a year then this trade is worth US$3 billion or more. We know this is traded largely in South Africa where some of the gold is sold in local markets and the rest is exported to other countries, especially the UAE.
In South Africa, some of this the gold is sold for rand and this generates very substantial rand balances which are then "sold" in Zim dollars to local importers at a premium.
The Zim dollars then used to buy US dollars to buy gold from the informal sector. It is impossible to determine what impact this has on the country's balance of payments but it must be considerable and this explains why the Zimdollar rate for US dollar cash is so much higher than Nostro transactions.
It is well-known that the South African refineries declare much of this smuggled gold as "melted Jewellery" and claim back valueadded tax (vat). This enables the informal traders to actually pay a very high price for gold on the domestic market.
In addition to this activity, the extent of smuggling of imports to avoid taxes and to meet domestic demand for everything from spare parts to food and beverages, using what are called "runners", is also impossible to estimate, but it is considerable.
Our border controls are totally subverted. This is not isolated to Zimbabwe but is well-known in all African States, in Tanzania it is estimated that 60% of imports are smuggled.
This entire system is funded by cash transactions and where people do not have access to currency they buy their needs on the informal market.
This suggests that total inflows of hard currencies are well in excess of what is recorded from the formal markets. Some of this may well emanate from the rand trade based on both remittances and the gold trade but it is also clear that remittances in all forms are much larger than is currently thought.
In the horn of Africa, where up to half the population now lives abroad, remittances are anything up to half total foreign exchange inflows. Average inflows are estimated at nearly US$1 000 per annum, per adult working in the diaspora. Zimbabwe has at least 5 million adults working in the diaspora and their combined incomes far exceed the gross domestic product (GDP) of their homeland. It is most unlikely that their remittances to their families are as low as the official numbers suggest — about $240 a year.
This is supported by the physical evidence of remittance supported activity. The Education ministry estimates that US$1,2 billion a year comes into the school system from remittances. The building boom now underway further supports the considerable inflows for this purpose.
This would explain the very substantial trade in US dollars in the informal economy and these volumes are mostly traded outside the banking system. In many African States it is possible to raise significant foreign currency resources from informal traders when the banks are unable to fund even a fraction of this activity.
But the fact that Nostro balances in real hard currency have reached US$1,6 billion in Zimbabwe, confirms that fact that overall, the country has a hard currency surplus.
If, therefore, we were to abandon the foreign currency auction at the RBZ and to allow a normal foreign exchange market to operate with our own dollar as the sole means of local trade, then it is clear that the resulting exchange rates would be much stronger than they are today on the auction. This is supported by the long tradition in this country of the local currency trading at rates well above 2 to 1 in USD to Z$.
-----
Eddie Cross is an economist and former MP for Bulawayo South. He writes here in his personal capacity.
Source - newsday
