Online Reporter
Nqobile Bhebhe [email protected]
ZIMBABWE needs to attract large-scale private capital into rail, energy and urban infrastructure to lower the cost of doing business and support its transition towards an upper middle-income economy, the Infrastructure and Development Bank of Zimbabwe (IDBZ) has said.
IDBZ chief executive officer Mr Willing Zvirevo said infrastructure bottlenecks were undermining the competitiveness of local businesses and could constrain the attainment of Vision 2030.
He said this in an interview with Zimpapers Business Hub on the sidelines of the ongoing Zimbabwe Economic Development Conference (ZEDCON) 2026 in Bulawayo on Thursday.
“The theme of the conference is basically looking at what kind of infrastructure do we need that will fit our status, our aspired status as an upper middle-income society,” said Mr Zvirevo.
He identified rail as one of the major infrastructure gaps, saying heavy reliance on road transport was increasing the cost of Zimbabwean exports.
“So we identified certain areas that are lagging, rail infrastructure, because what is happening is that when we look at our competitiveness as a country, we are finding that our goods are quite expensive when we try to reach foreign markets with our exports.
“And a major contributor to that cost is the mode of transport that we are using.
“Most of our goods are moving on road transport and rail is much cheaper. So we need to revamp our rail infrastructure.”
Energy was another critical area requiring urgent investment.
“The second issue was energy. No country will develop in the dark,” he said.
“So we realised there is a huge gap between the current energy supply and what is required to meet the economic growth that is required to achieve Vision 2030.”
Mr Zvirevo said Zesa’s balance sheet could not support the scale of investment required in generation and transmission.
“So there is significant investment required in both generation and transmission infrastructure and there is obviously an acknowledgement that our state utility Zesa does not have the balance sheet that will be able to attract the required scale of resources.”
He said private investors and independent power producers would therefore be critical.
“We were leaning towards crowding in private sector investors to work with Zesa and other local and foreign private sector independent power producers to make sure that we scale up on energy generation and also we strengthen our grid.”
Mr Zvirevo said increased generation could also create opportunities for regional electricity exports through the Southern African Power Pool.
“The beauty about energy is no longer being looked at as just a local issue, the whole of the Southern Africa region is in a deficit.”
He said transmission infrastructure linking Zimbabwe with regional markets would have to be strengthened.
Urban infrastructure was also critical, particularly transport mobility, water and sanitation and housing.
“All these are elements that we need to work together, both our public sector and private sector, to find pathways that would then attract the required capital from the private sector,” he said.
