Chronicle Editor
Oliver Kazunga, Acting Business Editor
ZIMBABWE has a lot of potential to attract foreign direct investment from all over the world despite the economic challenges the country is facing at the moment.
This was said yesterday by an Indian business delegation that is in the country to explore investment opportunities.
In an interview, officials from a global information communication technology firm, Sybyl said despite the economic challenges that the country is facing, it can still attract investors in different sectors.
“What we have seen so far is wonderful and I firmly believe there is every reason for businesses to come and establish themselves here. Foreign investors can provide technology right through to the grassroot level,” said Sybyl general manager responsible for banking solutions Mr Tejaswi Tanjore.
The Government is on an international re-engagement drive and has declared that “Zimbabwe is open for business”.
Investors have responded positively to this new policy hence many of them have been visiting the country to explore possible investment opportunities in different sectors of the economy such as mining, agriculture, and manufacturing.
Mr Tanjore said they were in the country at the invitation of Industry and Commerce Deputy Minister Raj Modi to explore business opportunities for software solutions to facilitate financial inclusion in start-up companies.
“For us it’s an honour to be invited by the Honourable Deputy Minister. We understand the country is facing some challenges but we believe it has a lot of potential to attract investment from across the world.
“So far, whatever we have seen, we firmly believe and are quite confident at this stage, it’s not only about business but it’s also about getting to work on financial inclusion sort of an opportunity which will uplift the whole population,” he said.
At the time smallholder farmers, small-to-medium enterprises, women and youth accounted for the bulk of the economically active population but were significantly financially excluded.
In a separate interview, Sybyl director for sales and pre-sales in Kenya and Tanzania markets Mr Eunil Varghese said:
“The intention of our visit here is to invest in software solutions for financial inclusion to help sectors like the Small-to-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to improve their business operations to protect them from malpractices.
“What we are centrally looking at is to offer such solutions, for example, we have been speaking to Saccos (Savings and Credit Co-operative Society), we are trying to bring the software so that SMEs can use it to run their businesses because the software is highly secured, it’s non-tamperable and is available from any part of the world as long as there is Internet connection,” he said. — @okazunga
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