By Reuters

HARARE: Zimbabwe hopes to agree a new staff-monitored programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) by April 2024, with an IMF team due to visit later this month for initial talks, its finance minister said on Thursday.

“Our intention is that by the time we go for the spring meetings in April 2024 we should have signed off on a Staff Monitored Programme,” Minister Mthuli Ncube told reporters in Marrakech, where he is attending the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings.

“It will focus on maintaining discipline on the fiscal front and continue fine-tuning our exchange rate system and maintaining a tight monetary policy.”

Zimbabwe’s economy has been scarred by successive bouts of hyperinflation.

Its access to long-term international capital is blocked by its $14 billion debt owed to foreign lenders including the World Bank and African Development Bank. Nearly half of that debt is in arrears.