July 25 (Bloomberg) -- Zimbabwe, which has the world's highest inflation rate, will announce a plan ``within days'' to help consumers access more cash and retailers cope with prices that have reached trillions of Zimbabwe dollars.

Measures will be introduced to allow consumers to withdraw more money from banks, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Gideon Gono said in an e-mailed statement late yesterday. The local currency currently trades at 100 billion to the U.S. dollar on the black market, where most residents buy foreign exchange.

``The next few days will see the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe unveiling measures that would address concerns on the current withdrawal limits,'' Gono said. It will also enable credit card machines to cope with prices in the trillions of Zimbabwe dollars. The current limit is 500 billion.

Inflation, estimated at 2.2 million percent, has spiraled since 2000 when President Robert Mugabe began the often-violent seizure of white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to black farmers. The policy slashed agricultural production, leading to shortages of basic commodities including flour and cooking oil, and turning the nation from a food-exporting country to sub-Saharan Africa's biggest corn importer.

Zimbabwe on July 21 introduced a 100 billion Zimbabwe dollar note to counteract the effects of spiraling inflation. The new note buys three uncooked eggs or less than a loaf of bread, according to Frank Hamadziripi, a supermarket manager in Harare, the capital.

No warning will be given before the new measures are introduced, Gono said.

The central bank wants to avoid giving ``unscrupulous forces in our markets a head-start in spiking up prices, based on negative and flawed speculative intuition,'' he said.

Gono was on July 22 added to a European Union's list of Zimbabwean officials who face sanctions because of their involvement in activities that undermine democracy and respect for human rights. The restrictions include the freezing of assets and travel bans, the EU said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Brian Latham in Durban via Johannesburg at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net;

Last Updated: July 25, 2008 05:58 EDT