PHILLIMON MHLANGA IN VICTORIA FALLS
The Zimbabwe Investment Development Agency (ZIDA) has received a flood of inquiries from potential investors seeking incentives, CEO, Tafadzwa Chinamo has revealed.
Chinamo, who spoke yesterday at the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) Congress in Victoria Falls, said ZIDA was licensing about 10 investors a week.
“We are inundated with investors seeking incentives. We are licensing between 8 and 10 a week. The investors seek three things that are resources, market and efficiency,” Chinamo said.
He, however, admitted that Zimbabwe has a very complicated environment.
“The environment should be conducive. The Statutory Instruments complicate the business environment as some conflict with each other. There is a need to align these,” Chinamo said.
He added: “As long as we don’t fix our environment, it will be difficult for us. We must be clear on which investors we are trying to attract.”
Economist, Persistence Gwanyanya weighed in saying: “The greatest incentive is stability. Clearly, we have accelerated instability in the economy today. It’s very difficult to attract capital into local businesses.”
University of Zimbabwe economics lecturer Albert Makochekanwa emphasized the need to have a sunset close.
He said: “Incentives should have a sunset close, which is not available in existing incentives. There is also a need for public evaluation of previous incentives to see where we went wrong and correct the situation in order for the much-needed capital.”
The group CEO of Old Mutual Zimbabwe, Sam Matsekete said incentives for investments was a big issue.
He said: “We can also create inefficiencies in business models. Incentives need to be purposeful to achieve sustainability into the future.
