Economic Condition in the Present Day

Zimbabwe - Poorest Country?

When Zimbabwe became independent in the year 1965, it had a diversified economy with a developed infrastructure and a highly advanced financial sector. Now, it is one of the poorest countries in Africa because of the doings of President Robert Mugabe. Robert Mugabe of the ZANU-PF (Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front), was re-elected in 2013 for his 7th five-year term, and his party had won three quarters as parliament, all because of a corrupted and flawed election. Because of decades of corruption and mismanagements, Zimbabwe is now facing a cash crisis and experiencing declining support from China. In the year 2014, poor agriculture left 2.2 million people of the 13.1 million population, in need of food assistance.

Economic Freedom

Zimbabwe's economic freedom score is a low 37.6, ranking its economy the 175th freest in the year 2014. It score has increased by 2.1 points since 2013, mainly because of a large gain in control of government spending and some improvements made in sectors such as trade freedom and fiscal freedom. However, Zimbabwe is still ranked last out of 46 countries in Africa, with a score that places the country way below the world and regional average - 60.4 and 54.9.

After the near collapse in the year 2000, Zimbabwe has went through five consecutive years of some development and improvement in economic freedom. In these five years, economic freedom in Zimbabwe has improved by 15.5 points which is actually the highest amount of improvement ever happened throughout all the nations. This gain has been caused by financial freedom and a control in the government spending - a control and decrease of corruption. They also dollarized the economy, which played a huge part in controlling the hyper inflation that occurred between the years 2008 and 2009.

Nevertheless, Zimbabwe remains one of the world's least free countries, economically speaking. President Robert Mugabe's corrupt and inefficient behaviour is not allowing any development and freedom to take place. The labor market in Zimbabwe is also very restricted, and strict business licensing forces most workers to get employed in the informal sector. Violent seizure of land by the poor land reform policies established by President Robert Mugabe had upset investor confidence, decreasing amount of investments. Foreign ownership are also capped by the government, without realizing that numerous state-owned enterprises are ruining their economy. 

At present day, Zimbabwe is still facing severe socio-economic difficulties such as hyperinflation, negative interest rates and chronic shortage of foreign relations and exchanges. 

Zimbabwe's scores in different aspects. Source: http://www.heritage.org/index/country/zimbabwe