Starving Billionaire

ZIMBABWE Inflation at 6.5 quindecillion novemdecillion percent

The Zimbabwe dollar now seems to have lost all its appeal, and calls for the adoption of a foreign currency to replace the struggling monetary unit and put an end to the country's crippling hyperinflation are becoming louder.

Dollarisation, or the use of a foreign currency - not necessarily the US dollar - in parallel to, or instead of, the domestic currency, has long been a daily reality for most Zimbabweans. Record-breaking inflation has made them reluctant to accept the local currency, preferring either to trade in a more stable currency, or to barter.

The monthly inflation rate passed the 50 percent mark - the threshold for defining 'hyperinflation'- in March 2007; in January 2009 the RBZ issued the world's first 100 trillion dollar note.

In an article in the December 2008 issue of the financial magazine, Forbes Asia, put the annual inflation rate at around 6.5 quindecillion novemdecillion percent - 65 followed by 107 zeros. Prices double every 24.7 hours.the hyperinflationary crisis of Hungary in 1946, in which prices doubled every 15.6 hours.