US shipping agents foil coin imports

president Mr John Mushayavanhu disclosed the snag at the inaugural Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce VIP lounge meeting on Tuesday evening.
The meeting focused on liquidity challenges in the economy. Mr Mushayavanhu said although most of the modalities had been completed, shipping agents were concerned about what they termed “reputational risk”.
“At the end of last year we travelled to the US as BAZ and engaged the Federal Reserve Bank officials over the importation of coins. He said they were agreeable as long as they were dealing with the private sector (BAZ) and not the Government.
“However, it was when we were working out the shipment of the coins to Zimbabwe that we realised that the shipping firms were not willing to facilitate the shipment because of what they said were ‘reputational risks’ in doing business with the country,” said Mr Mushayavanhu. He said they had intended to import coins to the value of US$5 million, which they considered adequate for the local market. “Although bringing in the coins was going to come at a huge cost to us as BAZ, we were willing to meet the costs,” he said. But, in sharp contrast, Finance Minister Tendai Biti yesterday said the challenge of importing the coins centred on the most appropriate mode of transport to land the coins in Zimbabwe and security concerns around the high value consignment. “The biggest challenge we are still facing is of transportation,” Minister Biti said.
“The coins we are importing weigh tonnes and tonnes. So the challenge is how to get them from Walvis Bay to Zimbabwe. We are still discussing with BAZ and other authorities on the best way of bringing them in.”