HARARE: The official foreign exchange rate for the United States Dollar (USD) to the Zimbabwe Dollar has now moved to US$1: ZWL$57 following the conclusion of the first day of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s new forex auction system. Before today, the official rate was at ZWL$25 for every USD.

The weighted average of ZWL$57.36 for every US dollar, will be the official exchange rate until the next auction on Tuesday. US$10.34 million was traded on Monday with the highest bid coming in at ZWL$100 while the lowest bid came in at ZWL$25.5

The new official exchange rate, however, remains way below the black market parallel market rate which is running at between $80 and $95 to US$1 depending on the method of payment.

Total bids amounted to US$11.4 million while the total amount that was allotted is US$10.345 million.

92 bids were received with the lowest bid being 25.50 and the highest bid being 100.00 which were subsequently weighted and averaged to get 57.36.

This exchange rate will run for one week until next Tuesday when the next auction is held. In terms of the new system, the auctions will be held every Tuesday