Bread basket to begging bowl
Once known as the 'bread basket of Africa' Zimbabwe's woes started with the taking of farmland from experienced white settlers and handing them to locals who lacked experience.
This resulted in the collapse of food production, agricultural related industry and trade and loans given to the sector going bad, creating a banking crisis.
As tax revenues fell, the government resorted to printing money to finance expenses, which created a balance of payments crisis as excessive local currency volumes chased decreasing dollar revenues.
The central bank also printed money outside the budget (quasi-fiscal activities) to finance collapsing local banks, industry, state-owned industries and local government bodies, worsening the balanc