The Zimbabwe dollar further weakened on the weekly foreign currency auction this afternoon to reach ZWL$ 63.744 against the USD in its second auction since Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe jettisoned the fixed exchange rate system.
The Zim dollar established its initial exchange rate under the new auction based system at ZWL$ 57 against the USD and continues to race against the parallel market which is now at ZWL$ 80.
Number of bids totaled US$ 18.957 million from US$ 11 million last week with foreign currency allotted to various companies reaching US$ 16.321 million.
The mount of allotted foreign currency represented a 60 percent increase from last week’s US$ 10 million, a sign analysts has described as encouraging.
The Central bank introduced the Foreign Exchange Auction System to determine the Zimbabwe dollar exchange rate with focus on enhancing transparency and efficient distribution of scarce foreign currency.
The system works under the Reuters Foreign Exchange Trading platform, a real-time electronic trading system.
The weekly auctions will sell excess foreign currency from exporters that will not have been used after the 30 day retention period, offshore lines of credit arranged by the RBZ and surrender portion of export earnings.
