A LOCAL economist has come out in full support of the debate that Zimbabwe should adopt the South African rand as its medium of exchange arguing the country's currency was no longer accepted in international trade and "from an economic point of view, it was no longer money".

Africa University economics lecturer Francois Kabuya told businessdigest this week that the fight against rapid economic decline by authorities would be futile without an acceptable currency, and immediate steps should be taken to adopt the South African currency.

"Zimbabwe has no currency," Kabuya told businessdigest after the launch of his new economics textbook, Economics for African Nations.

"If one looks at the volume of Zimbabwe's international trade, the country imports most of its products from South Africa. That is the currency that it must adopt. If the country does that, inflation will go down soon," said Kabuya.

He said some analysts blame Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono for printing money but if the supply side of the crisis were not addressed, the dollar will continue to lose strength against major trading partners.

"But there are many causes of the economic crisis and adopting a foreign currency and addressing the supply side are some of the last options," said Kabuya.

This week Gono met with the academics who advised him not to wait for international financial support but focus his energies on increasing production to arrest the deteriorating economic crisis.

There were reports last week that a Sadc team exploring lasting solutions to Zimbabwe's seven-year economic recession was mulling the adoption of the rand as a medium of exchange in Zimbabwe.

Sadc has denied the reports but Kabuya told businessdigest that the adoption of a stable currency, like what happened in Swaziland and Lesotho, was the only viable option that would save costly and inflationary currency printing programmes and revaluing of the currency as happened last year.

"You cannot store value with your currency and it is not acceptable anymore. Acceptability means both parties to a transaction will accept the money in exchange for the goods or services being purchased," Kabuya said.