The government is thinking about a new way to pay back the country’s debts to other countries. The plan is to use Zimbabwe’s rich natural resources like gold and platinum to help pay what it owes.
Minister of Finance, Mthuli Ncube, said they already have one plan working with platinum to pay off some of the debt. He said they will make more of these plans using other valuable minerals.
This new plan is an extra way to deal with debt, on top of the old way of talking with other countries to get loans.
Zimbabwe owes about US$12.3 billion to other countries. This big debt has made it difficult for the economy to grow.
Minister Ncube said that the country’s economy is doing much better now. This makes it easier for them to talk about their debt with other countries and banks.
Another government official, George Guvamatanga, said the main problem is not that Zimbabwe is too poor to pay. The problem is they don’t have enough immediate cash. He said the best solution is to restructure the debt, which means they would get more time to pay it back, maybe five or ten years.