{"id":10611,"date":"2012-05-07T12:54:11","date_gmt":"2012-05-07T10:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/05\/update-1-malawi-c-bank-devalues-kwacha-by-50-pct\/"},"modified":"2012-05-07T12:54:11","modified_gmt":"2012-05-07T10:54:11","slug":"update-1-malawi-c-bank-devalues-kwacha-by-50-pct","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/update-1-malawi-c-bank-devalues-kwacha-by-50-pct\/","title":{"rendered":"UPDATE 1-Malawi c.bank devalues kwacha by 50 pct"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>(Previous Blantyre, adds details, quote)<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">LILONGWE<\/span> May 7 (Reuters) &#8211; Malawi&#8217;s central bank scrapped<br \/>\nits kwacha peg on Monday and allowed the currency to<br \/>\ndevalue by 50 percent, heeding calls from the IMF to cut what<br \/>\nwas seen as an artificially high exchange rate that was hitting<br \/>\nthe impoverished state&#8217;s economy.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Commercial banks were selling the kwacha at 250 to the<br \/>\ngreenback, well above the previous official rate of 165 and<br \/>\nclose to the black market rate of about 275.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;At 250 per dollar, the exchange rate is well adjusted as<br \/>\nthe black market is certainly under-devalued. Following this<br \/>\ndevaluation, the kwacha is now fully liberalised,&#8221; the Reserve<br \/>\nBank of Malawi said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The bank is scheduled to hold a news briefing to announce<br \/>\nthe official removal of the peg along with other foreign<br \/>\nexchange restrictions.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The bank sent directives to commercial banks at the weekend,<br \/>\nsaying the peg would be scrapped from Monday and the market<br \/>\nwould determine rates.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re sitting as an individual bank this morning to decide<br \/>\nby what margin to adjust the exchange rate,&#8221; said Anderson<br \/>\nKulugomba, Managing Director of Nedbank Malawi, a subsidiary of<br \/>\nSouth Africa&#8217;s fourth largest banking group, Nedbank.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Malawi has been hit by a foreign exchange shortage stemming<br \/>\nfrom strained ties between former President Bingu wa Mutharika<br \/>\nand international donors, which led Western powers to scrap aid<br \/>\nthat normally accounted for 40 percent of its budget.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>New President Joyce Banda, who came to office a month ago<br \/>\nafter Mutharika died of a heart attack, had pledged to devalue<br \/>\nthe kwacha and restore the aid flow.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>(Reporting by Frank Phiri and Mabvuto Banda; Writing by Jon<br \/>\nHerskovitz; Editing by Ed Cropley)<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright\">\n<p>         \t\t\u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Previous Blantyre, adds details, quote) LILONGWE May 7 (Reuters) &#8211; Malawi&#8217;s central bank scrapped its kwacha peg on Monday and allowed the currency to devalue by 50 percent, heeding calls from the IMF to cut what was seen as an artificially high exchange rate that was hitting the impoverished state&#8217;s economy. Commercial banks were selling [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-10611","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10611\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}