Zimpapers Logo

Oliver Kazunga, Senior Business Reporter

ZIMBABWE has attracted investment proposals worth US$1,1 billion under the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) initiative and the projects are at different stages of implementation, an official has said.

In an interview, Zimbabwe Special Economic Zones Authority (Zimseza) chief executive officer, Mr Edwin Kondo, said: “We have registered US$1,1 billion worth of proposed investments in different sectors under the Special Economic Zones concept.

“We have made tremendous progress since we started, which is only a year ago because the expectations of the country are very huge and we are up to the task but we only started legal operation last year”.

Mr Kondo was in Bulawayo last week with a delegation from China’s International Co-operation Centre of National Development and Reform Commission (ICC-NDRC) to assess some of the SEZs opportunities in the city. Already three Bulawayo companies are now operating under the model. He said at national level the projects include new ventures and existing firms seeking expansion and that these were at different stages of implementation.

Among new projects, Zimseza has accepted applications for the Arcadia Lithium project in Goromonzi as well as the Karo Resources platinum project in Mashonaland West province.

“In Bulawayo we talk of companies such as Shepco, Colman, and Chingases, they are existing companies looking into exporting to the region. We have also licensed companies in other sectors such as agro-processing,” he said. “Some of the private sector companies that we have licensed include Karo Resources, which is into mining and beneficiation.”

Finance and Economic Development Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube has, however, stated that non-exporting companies will not be entitled to benefit from the SEZs initiative unless they meet conditions prescribed in the Income Tax Act. On this, Mr Kondo said: “Export Processing Zones are those organisations that looked traditionally at exporting a certain percentage, maybe 100 percent. Certainly, within the SEZs themselves, exporting is a key component but I am illustrating that SEZs as a concept are much bigger than just looking at narrowly Export Processing Zones.

“But having said that our Minister of Finance and Economic Development is a listening minister so, we have engaged and also we are engaging him through our own Ministry (Industry and Commerce) and through the Office of the President and Cabinet”.

Under the SEZs concept, Zimseza has a mixture of public and private zones that are at advanced stages of development with some already putting up solar farms and the authority will be revealing such projects in the next three months, said Mr Kondo.  — @okazunga