New 1 and 2-cent coins to be minted

12 July 2007

BRUSSELS – Finance Minister Didier Reynders is asking the Royal Mint to mint new 1 and 2-eurocent coins as quickly as possible. A total of 160 million coins of all denominations will be produced.

No less than 90 million of them will be 1 and 2-eurocent coins (50 million and 40 million, respectively). Reynders’ request is in response to demands from shop owners, who often find themselves short of coins.

The reason for this is obvious: customers rarely use the coins, if at all, and the retailers are not rounding their prices up or down. For the same reason, 5 million new 50-eurocent coins, 25 million 20-eurocent coins, and 5 million 5-eurocent coins have been ordered. The demand for these denominations is clearly less than for the smaller coins.

Didier Reynders stopped the production of 1 and 2-eurocent coins in 2005 for financial reasons. In 2006 the finance minister reversed this decision by asking that almost 45 million new coins be minted, but it doesn’t seem like that was enough.

Minting the 1 and 2-eurocent coins costs more than minting the larger denominations. At EUR 1.81 a piece the production of the 90 million 1 and 2-cent coins will cost the Belgian state a total of EUR 162.9 million.

Subject: Belgian news