black market exchange rate dollar to birr

A sensible macro reform is always our agenda but there should not be any concern about mere devaluation.

There is widespread rumor that devaluation is in the making. A sensible macro reform is always our agenda but there should not be any concern about mere devaluation.” “There is widespread rumor that devaluation is in the making,” Eyob Tekalign, state minister in the Ministry of Finance, said on Twitter on Thursday. The birr currently trades at 53.42 to the United States dollar, according to Refinitiv Eikon data, but it is reportedly worth 96 to 97 on the black market, and the country has long experienced foreign exchange shortages. On Thursday, Abiy’s newly appointed central bank governor, Yinager Dessie, pledged to meet the business community regularly and pledged that their main concerns - scant access to credit and foreign exchange - were government priorities.Speculation that the birr currency would be devalued is “completely unfounded”, Ethiopia’s junior finance minister says as the country seeks an International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan after agreeing to a ceasefire in its two-year civil war. His moves to liberalise the economy by opening up lucrative state-owned assets to foreign investment have been cheered by his people as well as outside investors keen to enter one of Africa’s last untapped markets. Since taking office in April, Abiy has turned politics and the economy on its head in the nation of 100 million people. The dollar shortage has also dissuaded international firms from investing out of fear they will struggle to repatriate profits. Since earlier this year, essential items including insulin, blood pressure medication and infant formula have become scarce. “All of a sudden this is happening,” said one real estate agent whose business had come to a standstill over the past year because the construction sector could not access dollars to import building materials.Ī decade-long infrastructure push aimed at industrialising the overwhelmingly agrarian nation to create jobs has as a side-effect exacerbated the dollar shortage. * New prime minister has turned politics, economy on its headĪDDIS ABABA, July 20 (Reuters) - A “hard currency amnesty” and reform-driven confidence in Ethiopia’s economy, both at home and abroad, have helped close a once yawning gap between the official and black market exchange rates for its birr currency.Īs cash - in some cases briefcases full of dollars - pours into banks, local businesses say they are finally feeling relief from a foreign exchange crunch that had seen some segments of the economy grind to a halt.īusinesses and analysts in the capital Addis Ababa told Reuters on Friday the birr was trading on the parallel market around 28 to the dollar, close to parity with the official rate and 25 percent firmer than three months ago.

* Ethiopia’s economy has faced crippling forex shortage

Black market exchange rate dollar to birr