adminOliver Kazunga Business Reporter
THE Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) will hold an investment conference with investors from the European Union in June as part of efforts by the industrial lobby to attract Foreign Direct Investment into the country.
A source from CZI told Business Chronicle last week that the industrial body would soon be touring Europe and use the visit to invite potential investors to the conference so that they could explore investment opportunities in the country.
“At the moment, the country requires significant funding for economic recovery and as part of efforts to complement government’s efforts in attracting foreign direct investment into Zimbabwe, we will use the tour as a platform to attract investors to the conference,” said the source.
Invitations to the conference will be extended to the international community and during the tour, the delegation will discuss the challenges facing the country.
According to CZI, the country’s manufacturing sector requires about $8 billion.
Due to liquidity constraints on the local market, domestic and foreign-owned companies have in the past down-scaled or closed resulting in massive unemployment.
Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe Investment Authority (ZIA) last year approved investments worth $685,8 million down from $909 million in 2012.
Most proposals were from mining investors with $214 million investment projects having been approved.
The government has declared mining as the key driver of the economy under the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation covering 2014 to 2018.
The investment authority said the services sector accounted for about $172,4 million, manufacturing $158 million, construction $129,4 million and the agriculture sector $2,5 million.
China accounted for most of the proposals at $389,5 constituting more than 50 percent total proposals spread across agriculture, construction, manufacturing, mining services and tourism followed by Curacao, an island in the southern Caribbean Sea, off the Venezuelan coast had $63,6 million, Russia (mostly mining) at $40,1 million, the United Kingdom (mostly manufacturing) at $34 million and South Africa at $38,7 million.
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