The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo has launched a new currency to replace notes which carried a portrait of the late president Mobutu.

Its release follows a year of reforms aimed at bringing inflation under control and establishing a single exchange rate across the country.

The central bank governor, Jean-Claude Masangu, told the BBC that new controls would prevent the soaring inflation that has accompanied the issuing of new currencies in the past.

He said non-governmental organisations, churches and private companies would help to bring in old notes from the interior for exchange.

The BBC correspondent in Kinshasa says the success of the new currency -- the Congolese franc -- is central to plans to relaunch an economy ruined during decades of misrule.