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Zimbabwe’s Dollar Bourse Booms as Harare Charts Its De-Dollarisation Roadmap

  • Writer: Derry Thornalley
    Derry Thornalley
  • 4 days ago
  • 4 min read

Traders on the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange (VFEX) have spent much of 2025 watching green on their screens. The United States dollar-denominated bourse has climbed about 34% year-to-date, outpacing many regional peers and last year’s already strong gains. Mining counters and export-oriented companies have led the charge, turning the tiny resort city into an unlikely focal point for hard-currency investors.

Yet 700km away in Harare, policymakers are preparing for the opposite journey: a structured retreat from the U.S. dollar.


In August, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor John Mushayavanhu confirmed that the central bank will publish a formal de-dollarisation roadmap, alongside a new five-year economic blueprint. The plan will spell out how the gold-backed Zimbabwe Gold (ZiG) will, over time, become the sole legal tender, with most U.S. dollar contracts capped at 2030.


The tension between a booming dollar bourse and a state-led push for monetary sovereignty is now at the heart of Zimbabwe’s financial story.


A new currency still on trial

The ZiG, launched in April 2024 as the country’s sixth attempt at a stable currency in two decades, was pitched as a more disciplined unit backed by a reserve of gold and foreign currency. Banks converted Zimbabwe dollar balances into ZiG, and the RBZ promised tighter money growth and greater transparency.


Reality has been messy. By April 2025, year-on-year local-currency inflation was running at 85.7%, and the ZiG had lost close to half of its value compared with its launch rate. Formal retailers complained of rising costs and shrinking footfall, while informal “night markets” thrived by trading largely in dollars at rates closer to the parallel market.


But there are signs the worst of the shock may be easing. A recent report from the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) projects inflation could fall sharply to 15–20% by the end of 2025, citing a more stable ZiG, high international gold prices and record-breaking gold production. The ZiG’s parallel-market premium has narrowed to around 20%, far below earlier peaks.


For Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube, that’s enough to forecast a 6% growth rebound in 2025, after drought and currency turmoil dragged GDP growth down to about 2% in 2024. Stronger agriculture, better power supply and higher mineral exports underpin his optimism.



Clarity demanded on the road away from the dollar

If ZiG is to be more than another short-lived experiment, investors say the rules of the game must be clear.

In its latest Article IV consultation, the IMF welcomed Zimbabwe’s efforts to stabilise prices but warned that uncertainty over the “mono-currency transitional plan” could undermine confidence. The Fund urged Harare to spell out the operational details of de-dollarisation, including how and when dollar-denominated contracts will migrate to ZiG and what safeguards are in place for savers.


Local analysts echo that call. Research from Zimbabwean banks argues that any roadmap must be backed by continued fiscal restraint, accumulation of reserves, and an import-substitution strategy that reduces pressure on scarce foreign currency.


Without that, there is a risk that households and firms simply ignore the script, continuing to price goods and services in dollars while using ZiG only where regulations force them to.


VFEX: a pressure valve for hard-currency capital

The Victoria Falls Stock Exchange has become a kind of pressure valve for those contradictions.

Set up in 2020 as a special economic zone bourse where companies can list and trade exclusively in U.S.

dollars, VFEX has attracted miners, exporters and regional investors who want Zimbabwe exposure without local-currency risk. Government figures show the VFEX All Share Index already up more than 4% between January and May 2025, with the rally accelerating later in the year to a 34% gain by late September.


New capital-expenditure plans from VFEX-listed companies – including a US$40m-plus programme from Caledonia Mining – underline how the exchange is being used to raise hard currency for domestic investment.


For now, policymakers appear comfortable with this two-track reality: a dollar bourse channelling offshore funds, and a domestic system gradually nudged towards ZiG. The risk is that, if de-dollarisation is mishandled, VFEX becomes less a complement to local markets and more an escape route.


Where platforms like Verī fit into Zimbabwe’s moment

Behind the headlines, regional financial infrastructure is quietly being rewired.


Digital investment platforms such as Verī Platform, operating out of Mauritius and other African hubs, are building pipes that connect local custodians, stockbrokers, banks and asset managers in markets like Zimbabwe to both VFEX, the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange and a broad universe of offshore assets.


For local institutions, that kind of connectivity offers two forms of insurance:

  • on one side, the ability to diversify client portfolios across borders and asset classes when domestic conditions are volatile;

  • on the other, the capacity to consolidate Zimbabwean exposures – ZiG and dollar, VFEX and ZSE – into a single, controlled environment that regulators can supervise and auditors can trace.


As Harare moves from statements to implementation on de-dollarisation, the institutions that will navigate this transition – banks, pension funds, asset managers and regulators – will increasingly need that kind of infrastructure rather than ad-hoc workarounds.


Whether Zimbabwe’s big monetary gamble pays off will depend on more than the price of gold or the next drought cycle. It will hinge on trust: in the ZiG, in the roadmap away from the dollar, and in the systems that allow capital to move in and out of the country with confidence.


For now, the verdict is split between two trading screens: one in ZiG, one in U.S. dollars – both trying to price the same uncertain future.

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