Namibia mulls ending 25-year currency peg to the volatile rand
The country's finance minister says the nation is weighing options for a local dollar
Namibia is growing tired of the economic pain caused by the volatile rand and is considering ending a 25-year-old peg to the currency of its larger neighbour. The government in Windhoek is weighing options to amend the currency arrangement or forge a new path for the Namibian dollar, Namibian finance minister Calle Schlettwein said in an interview in New York. A change isn’t imminent as the nation seeks to emerge from its first recession in 14 years, but as the economy recovers, integration with SA, including customs agreements, has to be re-assessed. “The whole basket has to be re-evaluated,” he said. Namibia, a country bigger than France by land area but with a population of just 2.6-million people, introduced its own currency in 1993, pegged at parity to the rand, three years after gaining independence from SA. Regional neighbours Lesotho and Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, have a similar arrangement. The three nations, together with Botswana, also operate a customs-sharin...
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