South Sudan Says Currency, Printed by De La Rue Plc, Will Arrive July 13

South Sudan’s new currency, printed by De La Rue Plc (DLAR), the world’s biggest printer of banknotes, will arrive on July 13, Finance Minister David Deng Athorbei said.

The South Sudan pound will be equal in value to the Sudan pound, Athorbei told reporters today in Juba, the newly independent nation’s capital. The Sudanese pound currently trades at about 2.67 to the dollar, according to the Central Bank of Sudan, while on the parallel market it sells at about 3.3 to the greenback.

The Bank of Southern Sudan, the central bank, will keep any Sudanese pound notes it receives and will start issuing the new currency when withdrawals are made, Athorbei said.

South Sudan became independent on July 9, six years after the end of a two-decade civil war with the north that killed as many as 2 million people. The country of 8 million people now controls about 75 percent of Sudan’s daily production of 490,000 barrels of oil, pumped mainly by China National Petroleum Corp., Malaysia’s Petroliam Nasional Bhd. and India’s Oil & Natural Gas Corp.

To contact the reporter on this story: Matt Richmond in Juba at mrichmond10@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at sguazzin@bloomberg.net.