$100bn currency note by Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe, grappling with a record 2.2 million per cent inflation, has introduced a new 100-billion-dollar bank note in a bid to tackle cash shortages, the central bank said yesterday.

The new note will go into circulation tomorrow, the bank said in a statement cited by state media, joining about half a dozen new high denomination notes already issued this year.

In January, a 10-million-dollar note was issued, then a 50-million-dollar note in April. In May, notes for 100 million and 250 million dollars were issued, swiftly followed by those for five billion, 25 billion and 50 billion.

The southern African nation, currently gripped by a post-election crisis, has been ravaged by hyper-inflation, which shot up from 165,000 per cent in February to 2.2 million per cent in June.