FDI committee set up

Conrad Mwanawashe Harare Bureau
The government and its technical partners have established a technical team to collect Foreign Direct Investment statistics in the country, an official has said.The Zimbabwe Investment Authority chief executive officer Richard Mbaiwa told the Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs that the setting up of the committee was influenced by the need for government to rely on data collected by its agents and technical partners.

United Nations Conference on Trade and Development World Investment Report which was launched last week showed that FDI inflows to Zimbabwe, at $400 million, is lower than other southern African countries and there has not been a movement upwards or downwards in 2012 and 2013.

Mbaiwa said the UNCTAD figures are “subjective” and may not be “accurate” though they are very reflective when looked at on a comparative basis.

“Because of this, with the assistance of UNCTAD we have established a technical working group which comprises ZIA, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, ZimStats and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development to collect FDI statistics in the country so that we have figures that we can be sure of and not depend on figures collected by other institutions,” said Mbaiwa.

“We are working on this exercise and we expect the first report to be published in December this year,” said Mbaiwa.
Star performers in pulling FDIs in the region include the Democratic Republic of Congo which raked in $2 billion annually, Zambia – $1,8 billion, Mozambique – $6 billion and South Africa $8 billion.

“On this basis we as a country are operating below our capacity and potential. There is ability in the future to increase the levels once we deal with issues of policy, doing business (environment) and perception,” said Mbaiwa.

He said issues to do with competitiveness and doing business reports that are published by international financiers give indications to investors that Zimbabwe is a difficult place to do business.