HARARE President Robert Mugabe last week promised a stable policy environment while Finance Minister Tendai Biti vowed to maintain use of foreign currency for the foreseeable future, as Zimbabwes unity government stepped up efforts to attract investors to the countrys ailing mining sector. (Pictured: Tendai Biti - We will not return the Zimbabwe dollar until “The government is committed to ensuring that the policy environment is stable, predictable and sufficiently attractive to guarantee investors good returns on their investment,” Mugabe told foreign investors attending a mining conference that ended in Harare last Thursday.The two-day conference focusing on reviving the mining sector in Zimbabwe and putting the country back on the map as an attractive investment destination was the first mining indaba since formation in February of an inclusive government made up of Mugabes Zanu (PF) party and the two MDC formations led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Deputy Premier Arthur Mutambara.
Seize opportunities
Mugabe urged foreign mining companies to invest in the southern African country and said government would soon pass a new law to govern the sector, which would address concerns raised by an earlier draft. “Investors are invited to seize the opportunities offered by the mining sector in the production of an assorted array of important minerals that provides great opportunities for investment,” the 85-year-old leader said.
The government has withdrawn from Parliament a controversial Mines and Minerals Amendment Bill that analysts had warned could scuttle efforts to revive the mining sector. The Bill withdrawn to allow for consultations with stakeholders among other investor-unfriendly facets, sought to transfer a majority stake in international mining houses to locals, including giving the government a free 25 percent stake. Under the draft law, foreign firms mining strategic minerals such as coal and coal-bed methane were required to cede 51 percent shareholding to government, with the state taking 25 percent of that free.
The government was also entitled to take 25 percent shareholding in precious minerals such as gold, diamonds and platinum while 26 percent would go to locals.
The changes to the Mines and Minerals Act were approved by Cabinet in 2006, but never signed into law.
No to Zimdollar
Addressing the same conference Biti, who is also secretary general of Tsvangirais MDC party, sought to reassure hundreds of local and foreign mining and investment executives at the meeting that the valueless Zimbabwe dollar that the unity government shelved earlier this year would not come back soon. Biti said mining remained the heartbeat of Zimbabwes economic revival and urged investors to be patient as government was making frantic efforts to bring back sanity to the mining sector.
We will not return the Zimbabwe dollar until we have an economy to support it, said Biti, who dismissed calls by Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Gideon Gono for the return of the local currency as mere parochial nationalism. The Finance Minister said the mining sector would remain a key engine for growth as the six-month old power-sharing government works to rebuild Zimbabwes once brilliant economy.
Mining will be the heartbeat of revival of the economy. Zimbabwe at the present time represents a construction site . we are rebuilding our fundamental economic drivers industrial water, power and logistics, Biti said. More than 700 foreign and local investment executives attended the first day of the conference yesterday in a clear example of how the mining world remains obsessed with Zimbabwes lucrative mineral resources despite the countrys uncertain political future.
Zimbabwe has the world’s second-biggest platinum reserves after South Africa and large deposits of diamonds, coal and nickel.
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