Berlin  - A German government minister Friday urged a Munich-based specialist paper firm to halt deliveries of banknote paper to Zimbabwe, saying it was helping to prop up the government of President Robert Mugabe.

Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul made the call after the company, Giesecke & Devrient (G&D), came under fire in the German media for continuing to trade with the ostracized regime.

A ministry spokesman said Wieczorek-Zeul had pointed out to the company that it was signatory to a code of conduct that included a human rights clause.

A dozen human rights activists demonstrated in front of the company headquarters in Munich on Friday, holding up banners reading: "No cash for terror."

A G&D spokesman repeated Friday that it was company policy not to comment on individual clients. "We stick strictly to World Bank rules with all our deliveries," he said.

The spokesman said deliveries of banknotes went to central banks and not to governments.

The deliveries have been widely reported in the German and British press, along with allegations that Mugabe is keeping himself in power by literally printing money to pay his ministers and supporters.

"The regime is surviving by printing money. At this stage there is no other way," Martin Rupiya, a professor of security studies at the University of Zimbabwe, told the Sunday Times of London in March.

The Berliner Zeitung daily reported that a large delivery of D&V banknote paper had arrived by air in Harare two weeks ago.

Bulawayo-based activist Gordon Moyo told the Berlin paper: "Without the constant flow of new banknotes, the terror campaign would long since have collapsed."

Moyo said the money was being used to recruit and pay thugs to intimidate the opposition and to finance luxury purchases for senior government officials.

As a result, inflation in the southern African country has soared out of control, with analysts long having given up attempting to estimate the actual rate.

G&D is reported to provide banknote paper to more than 100 countries and to be the largest printer of euro banknotes. (dpa)