HARARE – Zimbabwe's largest brewing company Delta Beverages, 40 percent owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev, said it has abandoned the plan to only accept hard currency payments due to the crippling shortage of US dollars after talks with the government and central bank.
Earlier this week, the company said that it would start accepting only US dollars in order for US dollars to remain viable in the face of an acute foreign currency crunch but this has since changed.
Zimbabwe's reserve bank will try to provide the foreign exchange required by Delta to continue trading at current levels, the bank and Delta said in a joint statement late Thursday.
The African country adopted the use of foreign currencies, mainly the US dollar, in 2009 in an effort to tame inflation, but a severe shortage of physical notes has left Zimbabweans watching the dollars in their bank accounts lose value compared with cash.