eBusiness Weekly
Business Writer
The country’s mining lobby group, Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe (CoMZ), is engaging the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) with a view to finding a solution to challenges caused by the new foreign currency regulations.
Under the new foreign currency regulations announced by monetary authorities during the Monetary Policy Statement, the exporters are no longer required to exhaust their foreign currency earnings as was the case previously.
However, the surrender threshold has been raised to 40 percent from 30, angering some exporters.
It is against this background that some exporters, particularly in the mining sector, say they are now having shortfalls meeting their obligations that require foreign currency.
CoMZ chief executive officer Isaac Kwesu, said miners are having to augment for the shortfalls by turning to the Foreign Currency Auction System.
However, the challenge is that some of their bids are not going through thus diminishing miners’ ability to sustain production.
“It’s an issue that has come up with some members saying that the 40 percent foreign currency surrender is on the up side,” said Kwesu.
“Depending on an individual exporter’s cost structure, some miners are having shortfalls in terms of their foreign currency needs and have had their capacity to sustain production curtailed.
“You will be aware of the foreign currency auction system and our members are also participating in it but unfortunately not every bid on the auction is always successful.
“So it is against this background that we are engaging the RBZ to consider giving priority to bids from exporters and not just miners but all the exporters because I think it’s ideal we pull all stops to make sure we sustain businesses that are bringing the forex in the first place,” he said.
RBZ Governor Dr John Mangudya, was not available for comment at the time of going to print while the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development, referred questions back to the bank.
Dr Mangudya has, however, in the past, explained the need to strike a balance between exporters’ needs to retain hard currency and the need to meet the country’s other requirements that need foreign exchange.
The RBZ boss has previously noted that there is need to retain a chunk of the exporters’ earnings so that Government can then meet other needs like healthcare and infrastructure development projects.
