Greetings.

For the benefit of those that travel to Mozambique, just to inform that a currency reform took effect last Saturday (01JUL06).

Mozambican currency is named “Metical†and the “new†currency is designated as “Metical New Familyâ€.

The international currency code for the “old†Metical is MZM, whereas the “new family†Metical is MZN. Internally (in Mozambique), the codes are “Mt†and “Mtn†for the Metical and “new family†respectively.

The currency reform is no more complex than dividing by 1,000. Thus the old 1,000 metical coin now worth one metical "of the new family", as the government and the central bank refer to the new notes and coins.

The largest old note, for 500,000 meticais, is now worth 500 "new family" meticais. There is a larger note, for 1,000 new meticais, which is worth a million old meticais.

There were about 25,000 old meticais to the US dollar: now there are 25 new meticais to the dollar.

The most striking aspect of the new notes is that they all bear the portrait of the man who led Mozambique to independence, and was the country`s first president, Samora Machel.

There are six new banknotes, with the face value of 1,000, 500, 200, 100, 50 and 20 "new family" meticais. In addition to Machel`s portrait, they also bear images of the country`s wildlife - elephants, rhinoceros, giraffe, lion, buffalo and antelope.

No living person is shown on any of the notes, which might calm the fears of opposition politicians who believed that the government was plotting to put President Armando Guebuza`s face on the notes.

The new coins have the face value of 10, five, two and one metical. There are also smaller coins for 50, 20, 10, five and one centavos (the metical has always been divided into 100 centavos, but with calculations in recent years done in the millions and billions of meticais, nobody has bothered much about centavos).

The old banknotes and coins are not being withdrawn immediately from circulation. Between 1 July and 31 December both the old and the new notes and coins will be legal tender, and all shops and services must display their prices in both old and new meticais. In notation, the old meticais are referred to as "MT", and the new ones as "MTn".

As from 1 January 2007, the old notes and coins can no longer be used in transactions - but during the ensuing year they can be changed for new meticais at any bank.

It was the huge devaluations of the currency in the late 1980s and early 1990s that forced Mozambicans to deal in millions and billions of meticais. Even the statutory minimum wage is over a million old meticais.

With the old metical, companies found that the columns in their books were not wide enough to accommodate all the zeros.

And certain computer programmes could no longer be used for Mozambican accounts, because they could not handle all the digits.
(sources: Banco de Moçambique and Angola Press)

I bet Zim. is not far from doing something similar.

More window dressing. When will they learn?

analog_peninsula