SOUTH African businesses have been urged to continue investing in Zimbabwe to ensure stability in Southern Africa.
Report by Silas Nkala
The appeal was made on Wednesday by a South African member of the executive council (MEC) for Economic Development in Gauteng province Nkosiphendule Kolisile during the Zimbabwe High Level Investment Conference held in Johannesburg.
Organised by the Zimbabwean government under the theme Investing in Zimbabwe Building Partnerships in a Diversified Economy, the two-day conference was aimed at luring international investors to Zimbabwe. According to news agencies yesterday, Kolisile said Harare was key to regional economic growth.
“We will continue to encourage our business, big or small, to continue to invest properly and meaningfully in Zimbabwe to better the country’s economy,” Kolisile told delegates and several South African and Zimbabwean government officials.
“There is no way we can sit back and watch our neighbours stand alone to stabilise their economy. We must intervene. We urge businesses, especially those in Gauteng province where big multinational companies are based, to invest in Zimbabwe because whatever happens there will have a direct impact on South Africa so our business must have sleepless nights to ensure the Zimbabwean economy is well and stabilised.”
Speaking at the conference Zimbabwe’s Economic Planning and Investment Promotion minister Tapiwa Mashakada said Harare was pulling all strings together to ensure the country, become more “business-friendly”.
He assured investors that the Zimbabwean government was revising the controversial indigenisation law.
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Under the law, local Zimbabweans must own 51% of all businesses in which foreigners have a stake.
Mashakada said while investors were shying away from investment in the country because of the rapid roll-out of the legislation, the law was not intended to facilitate “nationalisation, but rather to be inspirational”.
“We are trying to harmonise our laws to become business- friendly,” he said.
“We view indigenisation as a commercial transaction, not as politics, and we urge all investors to view it in the same way where local partners put 50% of the capital.”
