Kwacha loses ground despite BoZ’s measures, as currency continues to depreciate

The Kwacha has continued to depreciate despite efforts by the Bank of Zambia (BoZ) to put in place measures to sustain its trading in the market against the United States dollar.

As at Tuesday, the local currency was sold at K27.0175 per dollar while buying was at K26.5093.

The Kwacha in the short term is likely to trade on the defense owing to low dollar supply to meet demand.

During Friday’s trading session last week, the Zambian currency edged lower as demand for greenback continues to rise amid scarce supply.

Read more: Bank of Zambia dumps $6.5 million into foreign exchange market to shore up value of Kwacha

A report by Absa Bank Zambia showed that the local currency ultimately settled at K26.600/26.650 and closed market on the same levels.

“At 08:30am, commercial banks in Lusaka quoted the local unit at K26.400/26.450 on the bid-offer until mid-day where it traded 5 ngwee lower to reach K26.450/26.500,” Absa indicated.

About two weeks ago, the Central Bank offloaded US$6.5 million into the market partially meeting increasing demand for hard currency.

Before this development, the BoZ was earlier in the market to defend the Kwacha by offloading US$8.5 million to partially offset increasing demand for the greenback.

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