Broad money supply up 3% in April

Broad money supply up 3% in April
Published: 30 June 2014
Annual broad money growth slowed down by 1,13 percentage points from 7,7% in March to 6,6% in April but increased by 3,3 % on a month on month basis spurred by tobacco sales, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) said.

In its April economic review bulletin, RBZ noted that the annual broad money growth represented a marginal recovery from an average of 1,44% recorded in the last quarter of 2013.

On a month-on-month basis, broad money leapt by 3% in April ($136,5 million), compared to $72,2 million (1,8%) in March.

The growth was largely contributed to by expansions of $171,0 million in over 30-day deposits, $107,2 million in under 30-day deposits, $100,9 million in demand deposits, and $92,7 million in savings deposits.

Partially offsetting these increases was a decline of $115,4 million in under 30-day deposits.

"The growth in money supply continued to be partly driven by tobacco sales. As at end of April 2014, cumulative tobacco sales amounted to over $330 million, which represents significant inflows into the economy," noted the bank, adding that claims on the private sector had increased marginally from $3 569,4 million in April 2013 to $3 594,0 million in April 2014.

Credit to the private sector declined by 0,43% in April 2014, from $3 610,3 million recorded in March 2014.

The bank said the slowdown reflected constrained lending by banks on the back of liquidity challenges, as well as risk aversion in the wake of increasing non performing loans.

"Outstanding loans and advances were largely in respect of agriculture (19,3%), distribution (18,5%), households (18,2%), services (16,0%), manufacturing (14,7%), mining (6,6%) and construction (1,6%).

"Credit by private sector continues to be short term in nature and mainly utilised for recurrent expenditures, 44,9%; inventory and stocks build up, 34,5%; consumer durables, 13,1%; and capital expenditures, 7,5%," said the central bank.

The RBZ also highlighted that the value of transactions processed through the RTGS system in April 2014 increased by 3% to $3,4 billion from $3,3 billion in March 2014 while the volume of transactions registered a decrease of 4%, from 192 020 to 183 626 over the same period.

The total value of card based transactions increased by 12,75% to $379,42 million in April 2014, from $336,52 million in March 2014.

The value of mobile and internet based transactions also increased by 5,07%, from $343,26 million in March 2014 to $360,67 million during the period under review.
- Zim Mail
Tags: RBZ,

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