Going shopping in Zimbabwe these days is an odd experience.

Drivers can beat fuel queues with foreign currency - or a cart

For one thing, you don't simply plan to go to the supermarket on Tuesday after work.

More likely, you find yourself rushing there when a rumour goes around the neighbourhood that one shop is selling bread that morning.

You get there, and if you're lucky there's bread, but there's no cooking oil, flour or soap; the shelves will, however, be stacked with things like wine, chocolate and electrical appliances.

Buying any of these luxuries will require wads of $20,000 notes - now the highest denomination, but worth less than US$0.50 on the black market. Inflation runs at more than 250% per year.

Outside the shop you might spot a $500 note lying on the ground - no-one considers it worth the effort to bend down to pick it up.

Wine but no bread

Zimbabwe has long had policies of fixing the prices of basic commodities so that the poorest may not go hungry, but in the context of inflation, general shortages and partial deregulation, the policy is backfiring: price-controlled goods mean little or no profit for shopkeepers.

Fuel shortages mean Bulawayo's streets have little traffic these days

"Any trader will try to put on the shelves anything that is not controlled," says Martin Rupiya, senior researcher in peace and security at the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa's capital, Pretoria.

Until 1998, there was a heavy tax on imported items - the IMF insisted this tax be scrapped, providing a further incentive for shopkeepers to favour luxuries over essentials.

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While traders who have applied to the Reserve Bank for foreign currency are legally obliged to show that part of their allowance has been spent on basics, they tend to keep this to a minimum.

Zimbabweans complain of bakeries that sell bread at the regulated price, but bake their loaves less than the standard weight.

Band-Aid

For years now, pundits have been predicting the imminent collapse of Zimbabwe's economy, amid hyperinflation and foreign exchange shortages.

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"The context of collapse may be different in terms of what we are looking for," Mr Rupiya says.

"At street level things have just about stopped functioning - it's at a different level for the international community."

Patrick Bond from the Centre for Civil Society at South Africa's University of KwaZulu-Natal also points to a difference between the big and the small picture:

"At the macro level, the state seems capable of periodically bailing out the economy... and by assessing where forex is for emergency purchases and making those available to its preferred importers. So I would anticipate this continuing though the costs - hyperinflation and the culture of the black market - are severe.

"On the micro side, the key question is whether the complicated functioning of a siege economy with very divergent market power can continue.

"But I think at a certain point, it's very hard to keep a patient alive when there's more Band-Aid than skin. When that critical point comes is impossible to say."

Dollarisation

It's easy to find the petrol stations in Zimbabwe - just look for the queue of cars that may be 100 vehicles long. And if you do see a petrol station with no queue, it's probably one of the garages that the government recently designated as taking foreign currency only.

Food subsidies mean trading in basic goods is unprofitable

This response to the fuel crisis drew a furious response from Zimbabwe's privately-owned press, which felt that government's assurance that it would ask no questions about the source of the foreign currency legitimised those who have been stashing foreign exchange illegally for years.

Patrick Bond describes the measure as "the first step towards a more general 'dollarisation'. It's important but I think the state will limit dollarisation for the moment, because it still has this awesome power to grab forex everywhere it can sniff it out."

The government surprised most observers when it "sniffed out" $120m to pay back part of its IMF debt.

Mr Rupiya says there is a need to examine whether the economy is capable of generating foreign exchange: "If it's not, then dollarisation will start to undermine the economy."

So where are the dollars coming from these days?

A mismanaged land reform programme is widely blamed for the shrinking of the commercial agriculture sector, which cost Zimbabwe dearly in terms of foreign exchange, at the same time as drought exacerbated the need to import basic foodstuffs.

But South African and Australian investors remain committed to the mining sector, along with the unknown deals that may have resulted from President Robert Mugabe's recent overtures towards China - even electrical and fuel shortages are likely to take their toll on the mines' output.

IMF ruling

So what will happen once the IMF makes its decision?

Mr Rupiya believes that if the IMF votes not to expel Zimbabwe - as seems likely - Harare will respond by implementing some of the structural changes the fund has called for, including the lifting of restrictions on trade and the cancellation of subsidies.

Zimbabweans have to queue for everyday goods - if in stock

This is a measure that can hurt the poorest hardest - though in Zimbabwe's case it may be somewhat mitigated by the fact that the subsidised basics are barely available anyway.

Another recommendation would be to cut public spending, yet the recent decision to introduce the Senate - an upper house of parliament accommodating 66 new members - suggests the government is not about to tighten its belt.

"Zimbabwe, as a case study, keeps on surprising us," Mr Rupiya says.

In any case, Mr Bond argues, it will make no difference at all whether or not Zimbabwe is expelled from the IMF: "They haven't been repaying loans at the required rate since 1999, and they owe the World Bank and African Development Bank even more, with no prospect of paying.

"Even if they were fully repaid, their policies prevent any further lending. So the $120m repayment - if really true - was mere vanity, it seems."