Zimbabwe expects to clear debt with foreign banks

ZIMBABWE expects to make up for all its debt arrears to major international lenders by September and could return to international capital markets thereafter, said Reuters citing a central bank deputy governor.

“The ball is in our court, it is not with the IMF or the World Bank or the African Development Bank,” Khupikile Mlambo, deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, told Reuters

In 2016, Zimbabwe paid off 15 years’ worth of arrears to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It is still years behind on payments to the World Bank and African Development Bank, however, hampering its ability to tap development financing from the two.

Once one of Africa’s most promising economies, Zimbabwe suffered decades of decline under former President Robert Mugabe and has been shut out of international capital markets since it began defaulting on its external debt in 1999.