Mnangagwa’s trumpeted $27bn investment delivers empty promises

Harare/Johannesburg — When Emmerson Mnangagwa took over the leadership of Zimbabwe from Robert Mugabe in November 2017, he promised to revive the moribund economy and adopted a mantra he’s repeated regularly ever since: “Zimbabwe is open for business”.

Together with the enthusiastic support of state media, Mnangagwa and his officials have announced more than $27bn of planned investment ranging from new platinum mines to steel mills and hydropower dams.The economy is in its most dire state since 2008, when inflation surged to an estimated 500-billion percent. Medicines, fuel and foreign currency are in short supply, prices of basic goods such as bread are surging and the IMF has forecast the first economic contraction in 11 years.

Zimbabwe has plenty to offer, with a cornucopia of minerals, including the world’s third-biggest platinum group metal reserves, and some of the best transport infrastructure in the region. Local ownership rules have been relaxed, as has a currency regime that hindered access to dollars. Few companies with a “rational level of risk appetite” will invest in the country in its current state, said Jee-A van der Linde, an economist at NKC African Economics.

That's a helluva hairline.... I mean headline

mqondisi_ndlovu

South Africa South Africa Latest News, South Africa South Africa Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

BUSINESS MAVERICK: Corporate SA pushes into Poland’s land of promise and prosperityPoland is quite the flirt. It has attracted a number of JSE listed companies to its shores over the years. And as long as the SA economy remains dim and exchange controls are kept intact, industry players say that their home country will continue to push its companies into the arms of foreign suitors. And Poland does hold promise. It has increased its GDP per capita by almost 150% since 1989, more than any other European country.
Source: dailymaverick - 🏆 3. / 84 Read more »

Smoky investment conferences pull wool over eyes of gullible, poor South AfricansPRINCE MASHELE | Smoky investment conferences pull wool over eyes of gullible, poor South Africans
Source: SowetanLIVE - 🏆 13. / 63 Read more »