The governor of the Bank of Mozambique, Ernesto Gove, announced on Thursday that new bank notes, made of polymer rather than paper, will enter circulation later this year.Paper notes will be replaced by polymer ones for the three lowest, and hence most commonly used, denominations – 20, 50 and 100 meticais (face values which are equivalent to about 70 US cents, 1.7 and 3.4 dollars).Speaking at a ceremony to mark the 31st anniversary of the creation of the metical on 16 June 1980, Gove said the polymer notes are appropriate to a humid climate and will last longer than paper notes.“By adopting this type of substrate, we expect to reduce significantly the cost of replacing damaged notes”, he said. “This prolongs the life span of the notes, and we shall be complying with our legal duty to provide the public with good quality bank notes, in the best conditions of security and convenience”.On average, he added, a low denomination paper note lasts for three years. The polymer notes are expected to last for five or even six years.Gove also launched new 200, 500 and 1,000 metical notes. These are made of paper, but with improved security elements, to make them more difficult to forge, including a water mark of the image of the country’s first president, Samora Machel, visible when observed against the light, a security thread incorporated vertically and visible on the front of the note, and intaglio printing.Gove explained that the introduction of the new notes does not imply the withdrawal from circulation of the existing notes. “They will circulate simultaneously”, he said.Gradually the improved notes would replace the old notes, but there would be no formal changeover, and nobody will have to hand in their old notes at the banks.“We think society needs more convenient and safer notes”, said Gove. “We must ensure more effective protection of the metical bank notes, adjusting their security elements and the material they are made of, faced with the current expansion of the financial sector, the increase in the number of monetary transactions, in the volume of money in circulation and the number of economic agents involved in these transactions”.The Thursday celebrations were also marked by laying the first stone for the new headquarters of the Bank of Mozambique, in central Maputo, about five minutes walk from the existing building. This will be a complex of two buildings – a 30 storey tall office block, and an adjacent 19 storey building, containing a car park, restaurants and further office space.