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The central bank of Mozambique has imposed foreign exchange controls to stabilize the country’s weakening currency. The Mozambican metical has plunged 36 percent against the dollar in 2015 as the country’s earnings from exports have fallen due to low global commodity prices.

Mozambicans will be restricted to spending 700,000 meticals ($13,600) per annum on overseas credit and debit cards transactions, Ernesto Gove, the governor of the Mozambican central bank said. According to Bloomberg, efforts to use the country’s reserves to defend the currency have been to no avail.

“The central bank is clutching at straws a bit at this point, having seen that using their already-limited foreign exchange reserves is almost futile against a concerted slide of the metical,” Hanns Spangenberg, a fixed-income analyst at NKC Independent Economists, South Africa, told Bloomberg.

Spangenberg said the country’s currency will continue to weaken due to large current-account deficit. Exports fell by 5% in 2014 to $3.916 while the value of Mozambican imports was US$7.951 billion last year.

Many African countries have had to take measures such as raising interest rates to support their weakening currencies. Africa’s largest economy has also imposed foreign exchange controls. The Central Bank of Nigeria in April imposed spending limit on naira denominated debit cards for transactions abroad. The limit was brought down to $50,000 per person per annum from the previous $150,000, while daily cash withdrawal limit on the cards was fixed at $300 per person.

The regulator also banned cash deposit into domiciliary account – bank accounts that let customers deposit and withdraw foreign currencies. Access to foreign exchange for the importation of some 41 items have also been banned by the central bank.

Despite criticisms that the measures are harming the economy, the CBN has insisted that the measures are to stabilize the naira and manage the country's foreign reserves. Meanwhile, foreign investors have been exiting Nigerian bonds and equities on account of the absence of a clear policy direction from the new Nigerian government as well as the restrictions on foreign exchange.