Zimbabwe revises investment policy

Mashudu Netsianda Senior Reporter
THE Ministry of Finance and Economic Development in conjunction with Zimbabwe Investment Authority is working on a raft of measures aimed at attracting and promoting investment to boost the country’s economy.The move follows Zimbabwe’s poor ranking in terms of business environment.

According to the World Bank, Zimbabwe is generally ranked as highly uncompetitive with a rating of 170 out of 187 countries in 2013.
Officially opening the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) investment conference in Bulawayo on Thursday, the Deputy Finance Minister Dr Samuel Undenge said government would implement reforms to attract investment.

“The government is inviting potential investors, both local and foreign to come on board and identify various projects to finance through joint ventures and similar arrangements,” he said.

Dr Undenge said government was in the process of reviewing the existing policy guidelines on joint ventures with the view of giving it legal force and fine tuning it to avoid uncertainties and delays in the processing of projects.

He said the revised guidelines were expected to be gazetted this month.
“This rating of our country’s business environment is counterproductive drawing negative perceptions over the country.  My ministry together with the Zimbabwe Investment Authority is therefore working to implement reforms in improving indicators such as starting business, registering property, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency, among others. The operationalisation of the One Shop Investment Centre will certainly improve the manner in which we conduct business,” said Dr Undenge.

“Furthermore, government will extend the preferred Economic Operator Status and implementation of the Duty Drawback System in order to revitalise and improve exports of goods and services.”

Dr Undenge said industrialisation would only be accelerated and sustained on solid technological base.
“The ability to develop, acquire, upgrade and adapt to modern technology is a key element for competing effectively in the current knowledge-based global economy,” he said.

“Government is therefore, encouraging appropriate linkages of our universities, tertiary and research and development institutions, and industry for the development of appropriate and adaptive technologies.”

Among the key strategies, Dr Undenge said, is the introduction of a cluster-based value chains to drive up productivity in the economy through facilitating economies of scale, enhanced value addition, global competitiveness and development of comparative advantage.

“This strategy is already being formulated in the leather sector and measures are being taken to facilitate the implementation process. A similar approach will also be embraced in other sectors,” said Dr Undenge.

He said government was actively pursuing Special Economic Zones, which are designed to attract investment through offering special trade and other fiscal incentives.

“Stakeholders will meet soon to discuss the format of Special Economic Zones and looking at what areas should be designated for that purpose. They will be geographically defined areas with the objective of stimulating business and employment creation,” said Dr Undenge.

“The government is currently formulating regulations for Special Economic Zones and these will benefit from the experiences of countries that have successfully implemented this concept such as Uganda among others.”

Dr Undenge said Bulawayo has also been targeted as a Special Economic Zone, adding that it had a potential to attract investment given that the city already had existing infrastructure.

Dr Undenge said Zim-Asset would guide the country’s development agenda for the next five years to December 2018. The total financing requirements of various programmes and projects under the Zim-Asset amounts to $27 billion.

The Minister of State for Provincial Affairs in Bulawayo,  Eunice Nomthandazo Moyo, said special conditions conducive to foreign investment would be created to ensure that the economy was  more open.