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Zimbabwe introduces half-a-billion dollar note

Thu May 15, 4:51 AM ET

HARARE (AFP) - Zimbabwe has introduced a new half-a-billion dollar bank note in a bid to tackle cash shortages fed by rampant inflation, the central bank said on Thursday.

"Introducing the new 500,000,000 bearer cheque for your convenience," read a Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe full-page advert in the state daily, The Herald, displaying specimens of the new note.

The note, comes into circulation 10 days after the introduction of a quarter-of-a-billion one early this month.

This is the fourth set of high denomination notes to be issued this year, the first being in January when a 10 million dollar note was put into circulation. The next was on April 2 when a 50 million dollar note came into being before the 100 and 250 million dollar notes were introduced on May 2.

The southern African nation, currently gripped by a post-election crisis, has been ravaged by hyperinflation which reached 165,000 percent in February. No latest inflation figures have been released since then.

The country's chronic economic crisis has condemned millions to grinding poverty with at least 80 percent of the population living below the poverty threshold amid mass shortages of basic goods in shops.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080515/wl ... WuHu7uOrgF

A Zimbabwean woman holding her toddler displays a fifty-million dollar note issued by the Reserve Bank in Harare, April 2008. Zimbabwe has introduced a new half-a-billion dollar bank note in a bid to tackle cash shortages fed by rampant inflation.