South Sudan will launch its new currency next Monday, just over a week after splitting from the north to become the world's newest nation, the country's finance minister said on Monday.
"From the 18th onward, depending on the distribution process, that money will be out and people will go on receiving their salaries and doing any other business as usual," Finance Minister David Deng Athorbei said.
Athorbei said planes would start delivering consignments of South Sudan pounds to Juba from Wednesday and that the exchange rate with the former currency, the Sudanese pound, would be fixed at one to one.
He did not say how long it would take to completely phase out the old currency.
Athorbei said the government had faced problems paying salaries for June and July after Khartoum failed to deliver Sudanese pounds to Juba.
"This difficulty is related to the fact that the Khartoum government did not deliver us the physical cash," Athorbei said, adding salaries for July would now be paid in the new currency.