ZIDA targets US$10bn investments
CLOUDINE MATOLA
Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency (ZIDA) is targeting to secure US$10bn investment commitments this year, Business Times can report.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Budget, Finance and Investment Promotion familiarisation tour of ZIDA facilities, the agency’s CEO, Tafadzwa Chinamo said the target was attainable.
“In 2023, we had US$9.6bn committed investments and I pointed out in the briefing that we had with the parliamentarians that it might not seem ambitious that we target US$10bn in 2024 because there was one outlier project, a very big project of US$3.5bn.
“So, if you factor that out, I think it is still quite a stretch. But, I think we are on track. We have just closed our half year and I think we are just below halfway as far as that is concerned. But with what we are working on right now in terms of pipelines, I think we will hit that US$10bn by the end of it,” Chinamo said.
However, he expressed concern over the plunge of commodity prices.
“We have seen since the beginning of the year when commodity prices plummeted. We are still seeing investment into mining but not at the sort of pace that we want.”
Chinamo said the manufacturing sector has the highest number of licenses issued with 41 licenses with US$47.41m.
During Q1 2024 ZIDA registered 143 new licenses worth US$622.18m compared to 116 new licenses with projected investment value of US$761m recorded in Q1 2023.
The services sector captured the highest projected investment value with 25% followed by the construction sector with 23% and the mining sector with 18%.
