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Acting Business Editor
THE TransLimpopo Spatial Development Initiative has come up with a final draft of a work plan for attracting investment in Matabeleland region.The initiative was mooted in 2001 when South Africa and Zimbabwe signed a bilateral economic pact to increase investment in Matabeleland and South Africa’s Limpopo Province.
However, progress to implement programmes that promote investment has been slow.
“The final draft has been done but we are yet to meet as a joint executive committee and possibly approve it and meet our counterparts in South Africa,” the TransLimpopo Spatial Development Initiative co-chairperson Obert Sibanda said in a telephone interview yesterday.
If the work plan is approved by authorities from the two countries, it is hoped that progress with regards to investment promotion under the initiative will begin.
The work plan, Sibanda said, looks at identifying and consolidating investment opportunities in the region.
“The year has just started and we are waiting for other stakeholders to come back from holiday. I think in the next two weeks we will try to meet as a joint executive committee,” he said.
Stakeholders under the TransLimpopo Spatial Development Initiative have identified possible projects in Matabeleland based on investment potential for each province in the region.
For example, in Matabeleland North, potential has been identified in coal and coal-bed methane gas extraction and processing while in Matabeleland South, focus would be on feedlots, irrigation schemes and tourism enterprises presently being underutilised.
Bulawayo, once the industrial hub of the country, stakeholders intend to package green projects as well as resuscitating ailing firms through joint-ventures with investors from South Africa.
In 2004, the TransLimpopo Spatial Development Initiative came up with a road map to attract investment in Matabeleland region but no projects have come up 10 years on.
Local stakeholders include the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority, Bulawayo City Council, Gwanda Town Council, and the Zimbabwe Investment Authority.
On the South Africa side, the signatories to a Memorandum of Understanding that seeks to promote trade and economic development in the TransLimpopo corridor include Polokwane Province and Venda University.
Online Reporter