Ethiopia’s currency dives by 30% as IMF-backed reforms to stabilize the economy take effect

Associated Press

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Ethiopia’s currency has lost 30% of its value the day after the central bank began implementing a flexible exchange rate policy backed by the International Monetary Fund as part of new measures to stabilize the eastern African nation’s economy. Mamo Mihretu, governor of the National Bank of Ethiopia, said in a televised address Monday that the reforms “will introduce a competitive, market-based determination of the exchange rate and address a long-standing distortion within the Ethiopian economy.” Commercial banks can set the price of foreign exchange and non-bank entities are permitted to operate forex bureaux for the first time, a historic change in a country where the government for decades fixed those prices allowing their black market to flourish.