Monetary Policy

On the 1st of January 2026, reports pointed that Zambia had become the first African country to accept China’s yuan for mining tax payments. The Bank of Zambia confirmed that payments in renminbi began in October 2025. Zambia’s move represents a significant departure from the long-standing dominance of the US dollar in African public finance and resource taxation. This positions the country at the forefront of an emerging trend in which African states are experimenting with alternative settlement currencies to manage external vulnerabilities and deepen strategic economic partnerships. Drawing largely on recent analysis of currency diversification in African fiscal policies, this update argues that Zambia’s yuan policy reflects both pragmatic responses to liquidity constraints and deeper structural shifts in the global financial order, while raising important questions about transparency, dependency and long-term fiscal autonomy. This update examines Zambia’s decision to accept mining tax payments in the Chinese yuan, situating the policy within broader debates on currency diversification, fiscal sovereignty and the evolving political economy of Africa’s extractive sectors.