EconomyBefore 2004, Zimbabwe had a rich, thriving economy. Then, in 2004, the country had an economic crisis. The country was hit by a drought, which caused major problems for this country. Some of these problems were:
· A large rise in people with HIV/AIDS · Extreme hunger · Poverty · Plunge in life expectancy · Agriculture destroyed · Huge increase in unemployment The drought caused all of the agriculture to fail, which greatly impacted the economy. Agriculture accounts for 70% of the population's jobs, 60% of the raw materials for industry, and 45% of exports to other countries. With all of the agricultural industry lost, there were just no other jobs for the majority of the population. Although a small variety of jobs are offered in Zimbabwe, agriculture was the main source of work, along with mining. Because of such a loss in the availability in work, the unemployment rate soared up to 95%. Another outcome of the 2004 crisis was inflation. Zimbabwe used to use Zimbabwean Dollars (ZWD). One US dollar was equal to 29,000,000,000 ZWD. To compare, a double cheeseburger that would be worth two US dollars would be worth 50,000,000,000 ZWD. In 2009, Zimbabwe stopped using this currency, and instead use multiple currencies, the most popular being the USA dollar. Since 2004, the economy has been slowly growing back at the rate of 6%. Their economy has recently been ranked 153rd out of 193 countries for best economy. Also, the current GDP is $9.9 billion, which is quite an improvement from the GDP of 2009, which was $5.3 billion. |