Trade on the Streets, and Off the Books, Keeps Zimbabwe Afloat
Even as Zimbabwe’s government, banks, listed companies
and other members of the formal economy lurch from one crisis to another, the thriving informal economy of street vendors, traders and others unrepresented in official statistics helps keep the country afloat.
The informal sector is now very much bigger, and it is actually keeping alive a very much higher percentage of the population." As long lines keep forming outside banks, the continuing decline of
the formal economy has raised fears of a repeat of the 2008 hyperinflation crisis, which was fueled by the unrestrained printing of the old Zimbabwean dollar, including a $100 trillion note.
In Southerton — the district where Mr. Chitiyo, the street vendor, once worked as a machine operator — Philda Chinyoka, the pastor
at the True Covenant International Ministries, a Pentecostal church, said she had moved her church to the area in 2014.
It’s been a long time since we were optimistic in Zimbabwe." Harare’s night market is the most visible evidence of Zimbabwe’s
swelling informal economy, which the government estimates now employs all but a small share of the country’s work force.
"It’s not equal on the black market." As the formal economy keeps shrinking, more
and more people have been crowding the area where Mr. Chitiyo sells shirts on Robert Mugabe Road.
" Mr. Chitiyo, 38, said under the dim light of a street lamp. that Since then, I’ve never been employed,
TANZANIA 400 Miles MALAWI ZAMBIA Zambezi River Harare ZIMBABWE MOZAMBIQUE BOTSWANA
Limpopo River SWAZILAND LESOTHO SOUTH AFRICA Indian Ocean MARCH 4, 2017
Mr. Mugabe’s violent seizure of white-owned farms starting in 2000 precipitated a decline in manufacturing and a process of deindustrialization.