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Busisa Moyo

Lovemore Zigara, Midlands Correspondent
THE Zimbabwe Investment Authority (ZIA) says only 25 percent of foreign direct investment inflows are consummated into real investment while the remainder remains expressions of interest.

Last year the country attracted about $1.2 billion worth of investment but only $400 million worth of business deals were implemented.

This is against the regional average of about $2.5 billion.

ZIA investment executive Washington Ranga told business leaders in Gweru there is a need to craft friendly investment policies in order to attract foreign direct investment into the country.

“When we capture investment figures they remain merely expressions of interest until they’re implemented. The average implementation rate over the years has been between 15 and 25 percent,” he said.

“There’s a need for the government to review some of the country’s policies if we’re to attract meaningful capital inflows into the country through the creation of a more liberal and transparent investment environment.”

Last week, Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) president Busisa Moyo expressed concern that the country was yet to realise meaningful investment from the series of business delegations that have visited the country since the beginning of the year.

Latest statistics from ZIA show that about $1.6 billion worth of projects had been approved as at August this year with the majority still to be implemented.

The top five markets for capital inflows in the same period are Mauritius, China, France, South Africa and Zambia. In his state of the nation address in August, President Robert Mugabe unveiled the 10-point plan which among other things seeks to improve the ease of doing business in the country.

The 10-point plan seeks among other issues to establish special economic zones to provide impetus for foreign direct investment and modernising the country’s labour laws. As part of its commitment to deal with issues of doing business, the government has introduced a raft of reforms which include the one-stop shop investment centre, which has seen the period to secure investment licences being reduced to five days from 40 days.

Such reforms have already seen the country moving 17 places to 155 on the doing business index.