Online Reporter
Business Reporter
THE economy is showing broad-based resilience and remains on a strong footing to achieve the forecast real gross domestic product (GDP) growth of about 5 percent this year, despite severe pressures from global geopolitical pressures and trade disputes.
In his 2026 National Budget Statement, Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube projected the economy to grow by 5 percent this year, spurred by agriculture, mining and the Government’s ease of doing business reforms.
Speaking today (Thursday) at the Mid-Term Economic Review and High-Level Policy Dialogue at Cresta Lodge in Harare this morning, Africa Economic Development Strategies (AEDS) board chairman Dr Farai Matanhire said Zimbabwe’s macroeconomic indicators are stabilising, anchored by robust performances in mining and a normalisation of the agricultural sector.
The high-level gathering serves as a critical stock-taking platform for the first six months of the fiscal year, designed to analyse domestic trends, evaluate independent economic modeling, and directly inform Zimbabwe’s upcoming official mid-term national budget and monetary policy reviews
“In our economy, Zimbabwe is uniquely exposed to the turbulence of global fragmentation,” Dr Matanhire said during his welcome remarks to policymakers and private sector executives.
“Escalating trade disputes, shifting alliances and regional conflicts are no longer distant. They translate into real domestic challenges—volatile commodity prices, disrupted supply chains and constrained access to global financial markets.”
Despite these external headwinds, Dr Matanhire highlighted a positive mid-year narrative driven by targeted regulatory changes and decisive monetary policies.
According to AEDS, a primary anchor of the current economic stability is the tight monetary baseline maintained by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.
Year-on-year consumer price inflation has steadily declined to a predictable mid-year rate of around 4,7 percent
This single-digit inflationary environment is supported by national foreign currency reserves that currently exceed US$1,5 billion, which Dr Matanhire noted provides a “predictable framework for business planning.”
With mining contributing over 70 percent of Zimbabwe’s total export earnings, the think tank emphasised the need to optimise the global demand for critical minerals—including lithium, gold, platinum group metals (PGMs), and chrome.
Dr Matanhire also pointed to a series of recent domestic reforms designed to slash sovereign risk and enhance operational certainty for investors, which include the total abolition of trading levies, a temporary freeze on selected mining exploration fees and the complete rollout of a computerized mining cadaster system to manage claims transparently.
He said that the country’s deliberate policy shift towards domestic value addition—enforced through localised lithium processing facilities and concentrate quotas—is successfully capturing greater local profits from ongoing global supply chain realignments.
Looking ahead, AEDS cautioned that matching the 5 percent growth projection requires deep internal structural integration to insulate the local economy from future international shocks.
“Together, let us consolidate our economic gains, reinforce our confidence, and build a diversified, shock-resistant economy,” Dr Matanhire urged.
