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Anti-inflation measures in Zimbabwe since 2007
Agence France-Presse (AFP)
February 20, 2008

http://www.africasia.com/services/news/newsitem.php?area=africa&item=080220180459.f6oz3mev.php

A chronology of Zimbabwean hyper-inflation since June 2007:

2007

• June 26: Zimbabwean authorities order traders, manufacturers and wholesalers to halve prices on certain basic goods in a bid to fight inflation. Zimbabwe had introduced a price control regime five years earlier in a bid to curb black market sales of certain basic products.
• June 27: President Robert Mugabe threatens to nationalise foreign companies, notably those in the mining sector.
• July 17: The United States criticises the price control measures as unwise and counter productive in announcing the dispatch of food aid.
• July 21: The government says it has created a 30-billion Zimbabwe-dollar (214,000-dollar) fund to revive companies that closed because of the price control regime.
• Aug 13: Mugabe calls for price controls to be respected. More than 7,500 traders are arrested for contravening the measure. More and more companies stop production, causing major shortages.
• Aug 15: Two people, including a 15-year-old boy, die in a stampede by people wanting to buy sugar in Zimbabwe's second capital Bulawayo -- the first casualties of the shortage of basic goods.
• Aug 22: Operation Dzikisa Mutengo (Reduce Prices) is effectively abandoned after it resulted in widespread shortages in stores and boosted the black market. Traders are allowed to increase the price of certain basic goods.
• Aug 31: Mugabe bans salary increases without state authorisation. The main government daily, the Herald, reports that rent, school fees and the price of public services are also frozen.
• Sept 6: The government devalues the currency by more than 100 times its value against the American dollar.
• Oct 12: The government authorises new price increases to deal with shortages. The national price commission announces an increase from 50 to 200 percent on the price of basic goods.
• Oct 23: The head of the central bank says the price-control measures have led to anarchy.

2008

• Jan 16: New banknotes worth up to ten million dollars will be put into circulation in a bid to stem the cash shortage, the central bank says.
• Jan 30: Mining authorities say gold production fell by more than a third in 2007.
• Feb 20: Zimbabwe's annual inflation rate soars to over 100,000 percent, the central statistical office announces.

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