FDI growth too slow

According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, FDI increased from $387 million in 2011 to $400 million last year. Economist John Robertson said the sums of money involved were too small compared to the country’s needs.

“That sum probably came from the platinum mines. Very little of it came into the productive sector. There were some investments in the services industry and also in supermarkets,” Robertson said. “We need investments in mining, agriculture and manufacturing. Once those are working and delivering raw materials to the manufacturing sector that sector will need money but this will have to come from abroad.”

Robertson said the biggest hurdle in attracting foreign capital at the moment was the indigenisation policy.

“It was an incredibly expensive policy to impose on Zimbabweans in terms of thousands of jobs lost,” he said.

Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce economist, Kipson Gundani, said the only significant thing from the investment statistics was the trend.

“In terms of nominal value in absolute numbers it is quite insignificant. The problem is the extractive industries get the most investment. We need to change our policies in order to correct this mismatch,” Gundani said.

Gundani said it was important for the government to look at investing in infrastructure development.

“We need to evaluate our policies as a nation and ask ourselves if Zimbabwe is attractive to investors and do we offer value for money,” Gundani said.

Zimbabwe’s investment figures have been on the upward trend since 2009 but have not been big enough to lead to significant change in the economy.