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Zimbabwean Business Forum Doubles Efforts to Lure Investors

by Thuso Khumalo

   JOHANNESBURG --

   Since taking office last month, Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa
   has put economic revival at the center of his administration. He has
   gone a step further to state his resolve to re-engage the international
   community that had long been disengaged by former president Robert
   Mugabe's regime.

   The South African based Zimbabwean Business Forum says having a
   president with such passion for rebuilding the country's ailing economy
   is the best news Zimbabwe has heard in almost four decades.

   Executive chairman of the forum, Marshall Sankara, says they are
   already hard at work convincing Zimbabwean business people outside the
   country and foreign investors to grab the economic opportunities in
   Zimbabwe.

   Sankara, who is also a businessman, says the Forum is convinced
   Zimbabwe is open for business.

   "We are very interested and we are going to do some massive investment
   in Zimbabwe. We are very confident that this regime, under the
   leadership of Comrade Mnangagwa, is going to loosen investment
   policies, which were so choking off to investors," he said.

   Sankara's forum seeks to lure $100 million worth of investment by the
   end of 2018.

   But Senior Researcher Samukele Hadebe, of the Chris Hani Institute in
   Johannesburg, says investors will first want to see practical
   guarantees that Zimbabwe is now a safe investment destination.

   "The problem that we have always had was that of policy inconsistency,
   issues of corruption, personalization of public institutions, issues of
   fiscal discipline," Hadebe said. "Those are practical things that cost
   no money, but that people would like to see very soon then we can
   realize a massive turnaround of the economy."

   Many believe ending cash shortages should top the government's
   priorities list.