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Dr Desire Sibanda

Oliver Kazunga, Senior Business Reporter
THE Government aims to attract more investors from South Africa by improving the investment climate through a range of measures to enable the quick licensing and setting up a manufacturing plant within three days.

Zimbabwe and South Africa enjoy cordial relations in trade and investment and the neighbouring country is Zimbabwe’s largest trading partner.

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Economic Planning and Investment Promotion, Dr Desire Sibanda, said last week that the Government was seized with trimming bottlenecks of establishing businesses in the country.

“As Government we want to create a hustle free investment climate. We want to assure South Africa that we will continue importing from there but, we are giving them a platform to come and invest in Zimbabwe.

“We have also transformed the One-Stop-Shop (OSS) investment centre through the Zimbabwe Investment Authority, which will see investors securing trading licence within three days of making an application,” he said.

The OSS investment centre was launched in 2010 to promote foreign direct investment through a number of reviews including the time investors took to get their projects approved from 49 days to three.

“We are yet to come up with the specific dates to say by such a time we would have reduced the number of days to three.  It is something in progress,” said Dr Sibanda.

Full operationalisation of the OSS concept entails that investment application processes and procedures would be done under one roof.

Rwanda, Botswana, Oman, Senegal, Mauritius and Singapore are some of the countries that have successfully implemented the OSS concept.

The Government through the Office of the President and Cabinet has also come up with the Rapid Results Initiative as part of efforts to improve the ease of doing business investment climate in Zimbabwe.

The initiative was also a response to President Mugabe’s call to reform the investment climate in Zimbabwe.

— @okazunga