Zimbabwe ‘open for business’, says President Mnangagwa

Zimbabwe is “open for business” and foreign investment in the southern African country is safe, President Emmerson Mnangagwa said on Thursday at a function ahead of the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos.

NAN reports that the WEF annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, will hold from Jan. 23 to Jan. 26.

Mnangagwa, who swept to power in 2017 after a de facto coup ousted former president Robert Mugabe, told the

gathering of government officials and business leaders that he was going to the Davos meetings to “dispel the

perception” that Zimbabwe is “an isolated island.”

NAN reports that a 2017 statistics from the Zimbabwe Investment Authority (ZIA) shows that the highest number of investment since January was awarded to the mining sector which had 38 projects valued at 467 million dollars.

The country’s mining sector has been improving lately with gold expected to rake in three billion dollars in export earnings from two billion dollaaars realised in 2017.

In 2016 ZIA approved 37 projects worth 64 million dollars.

Manufacturing had second highest in approved projects during the same period this year with 28 projects worth 63 million dollars, up from projects valued at 25 million dollars in 2017.

The other sectors which had approved investments by ZIA include services, agriculture and construction.

ZIA approved low numbers of investment in the tourism, energy and transport sectors.

In 2017 Zimbabwe attracted 319 million dollars in Foreign Direct Investment flows a plunged from 421 million dollars in 2015.

Zia said Zimbabwe still lags behind its regional peers such as Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia who registered three billion dollars, 2.3 billion dollars and 469 million dollars respectively in FDI inflows in 2017.

The authority said in 2014 the country’s FDI amounted to 545 million dollars, showing that investment amounts have been decreasing over the last few years.