Zimbabwe Says China to Cancel $40 Million Debt, Increase Yuan Use
By REUTERS

HARARE — China will cancel about $40 million worth of Zimbabwe’s debt due to mature this year and Harare hopes to facilitate use of the yuan currency in its economy as bilateral trade increases, the Southern African country’s finance minister said on Monday.

China has become the largest investor in Zimbabwe, which has been shunned by the West over its human rights record and is struggling to emerge from a deep 1999-2008 recession that forced the government to ditch its own currency in 2009.

Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa said China and Zimbabwe were negotiating the final amount of debt to be cancelled.

“They (China) said they are cancelling our debts that are maturing this year. Right now, preliminarily, we are coming up with a figure of $40 million,” Chinamasa said in a statement.

In the last five years, Zimbabwe has received more than $1 billion in low interest loans from China, which is Harare’s second largest trading partner after South Africa.

On a rare visit to Harare by a Chinese leader, President Xi Jinping this month witnessed the signing of 10 economic agreements, including a $1 billion loan to expand Zimbabwe’s largest thermal power plant.

Chinamasa said Zimbabwe planned to increase local use of the yuan after the central bank last year added the Chinese currency to a basket of currencies used in Zimbabwe that includes the U.S. dollar, British sterling and the South African rand.

The International Monetary Fund last month admitted the yuan into its benchmark currency basket, a recognition of Beijing as a global economic power.

As a start, Chinamasa said, Chinese tourists could pay for services in yuan and Zimbabwe could use the currency to pay its loans to China. The central banks of the two countries are already negotiating on a yuan clearance system, he said.

“There cannot be a better time to do this. It is now about looking at the modalities, specific sectors and how it can be done,” Chinamasa said.

中國大陸之外第一個 辛巴威公開使用人民幣

中國大陸與辛巴威達成協議，大陸免除辛巴威今年到期的4000萬美元（約台幣13.2億元）債務，辛巴威本周則宣布准許民眾使用人民幣公開交易。經濟學家說，辛巴威是大陸之外第一個以人民幣為貨幣的國家。

法新社報導，辛巴威財長齊納馬薩21日宣布，辛巴威將擴大使用人民幣。總統穆加比22日也表示，自明年起擴大使用人民幣將促進流通，進而提振積弱不振的經濟。

辛巴威幾年前因不當的土地改革導致經濟崩潰，面臨惡性通膨，2009年通膨率達到百分5000億%，必須發行面額100兆的鈔票，因此辛巴威幣實際上已不能用，自2009年起停用。不過，辛國央行六個月前才終於宣布廢除辛幣。

辛國從2009年開始用幾種外幣當貨幣，主要為美元和南非的蘭德。人民幣去年被列為辛國法定的一籃子貨幣之一，但未獲准在市場上公開交易。現在人民幣可公開交易，大陸觀光客可以用人民幣在辛國消費，辛國也將以人民幣償還中國大陸的貸款。

泛非洲投資和研究服務公司執行長阿貝迪恩說：「我很確定這取決於政治上的喜惡，多過於經濟的考量。穆加比發出強烈的反西方訊息，由於中國大陸承諾將以龐大資金挹注辛巴威，穆加比認為有很好的理由發出這樣的政治訊息。」

大陸國家主席習近平12月初訪問辛巴威，簽署了多項協議，主要為重建辛國基礎建設，例如電廠。

華盛頓郵報指出，辛巴威把人民幣當成通用貨幣，對大陸具有象徵意義，北京一直在推動人民幣國際化，而且已有成果，上月國際貨幣基金（IMF）決定將人民幣納入「特別提款權」貨幣籃。

辛巴威把人民幣當貨幣也是大陸影響力更深入撒哈拉沙漠以南非洲的明證。辛巴威一些經濟學家主張，辛巴威擴大使用人民幣，可避開美國的制裁。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2015/12/21/world/africa/21reuters-zimbabwe-china-debt.html

2015-12-24．聯合報．A1．國際焦點．編譯田思怡