US largest newspaper says Zambia’s ban on dollar use strengthening local currency

One of the world’s most influential newspapers and the largest circulation in USA, The Wall Street Journal, says Zambia’s ban on the use of US dollar in transactions is strengthening the Kwacha. In its Monday edition of Money and Investing front page, The Wall Street Journal published a K50, 000-note accompanying an article titled, “Africans Chase Away Almighty Dollar”. The Wall Street Journal also published a graph showing the Kwacha’s appreciation from the time the Government issued the Statutory Instrument banning transactions in US Dollar. “In Zambia, the measures appear to be working. Heightened demand for Kwacha pushed the currency to its highest level in more than a year in July, when it reached 4, 640 to the dollar,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “Fueling the demand were foreign-owned manufacturing and mining companies racing to acquire Kwacha even as they asked the Government to reconsider the policy.” Policy makers elsewhere in Africa are watching Zambia, according to The Wall Street Journal, a respected publication mostly read by policy makers, investors, scholars, diplomats and economic experts, among others. Giving a continental perspective, The Wall Street Journal also reported that starting next year, Angola will require oil and gas companies to pay tax revenue and local contracts in local currency, the Kwanza. It reported that Mozambique wants companies to exchange half of their export earnings for its local currency, the Meticais, hoping to pull more of the wealth in vast coal and natural-gas deposits into the domestic economy. The Wall Street Journal reported that since May, Ghana’s banks have had to keep all their deposits in local currency rather than foreign currencies. The Wall Street Journal is the largest newspaper in the United States by circulation. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, The Wall Street Journal has a circulation of 2.1 million copies, including 400,000 online paid subscriptions. This is according to a statement issued by Zambia's First Secretary for Press and Public Relation, Chibuaula Silwamba.