Zim firms, corporate leaders head to London for investment conference

BUSINESS REPORTER

A NUMBER of Zimbabwean companies and corporate leaders from home and the diaspora will be featuring at a major capital markets conference in London, United Kingdom, next week to mobilise private capital to finance domestic development.

The event, set for April 20 to 21, will be held at Queen Elizabeth II Centre from April 20 to 21.

On the 20 April, there will be a function at the London Stock Exchange.

Local companies that will be at the conference include Caledonia Mining Corporation PLC, CBZ Holdings, Nyaradzo group and Karo Mining Holdings. Internationally, there will be the British International Investment and the UK government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

Other entities that will be attending include the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE), Victoria Falls Stock Exchange (VFEX), capital markets regulator the Securities and Exchange Commission of Zimbabwe (SECZ), Insurance and Pensions Commission, the Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency (ZIDA) and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.

Diaspora investment groups which will participate at the conference include Zim-UK Business Chamber, Zimbabwe Diaspora Nation-Building Initiative, Zimbabwe Diaspora Investment Group, Institute of Chartered Accountants of Zimbabwe (UK chapter), Qoki Zindlovukazi Community Group, ZimThrive, Martketseer, CMG media group, Qoki and Zimbabwe Diaspora Investment Group, among others.

The conference will be addressed by Finance minister Mthuli Ncube and key players in the primary capital markets, corporate leaders, financial institutions and investment banks executives, and public accounting firms heads, as well as secondary market players such as fund managers and stockbrokers from Zimbabwe and overseas.

It is organised and partly funded by Financial Markets Indaba and Bard Santner Markets Inc, among other players.

The conference is facilitated by the Zimbabwean Embassy in the UK led by ambassador Christian Katsande.

Bard Santner Markets Inc is the headline sponsor of the conference under the theme, The role capital markets for sustainable growth of the economy: Creating and developing efficient local capital markets.

Financial Markets Indaba is a series of investment conferences convened under Indaba Africa, an emergent research network of interactive conferences that seeks to profile the investment potential of Africa.

The aim of the event is to showcase the local capital market to international investors, including the diaspora investing community to mobilise capital.

Anymore Taruvinga, SECZ chief executive officer, said the investment conference would present enormous opportunities for Zimbabwe.

“So our interest as the capital markets regulator is obviously to ensure that the Zimbabwean story is told, how are capital markets are open for foreign investment including investment by our community in the diaspora. We have the local stock exchange: the ZSE and the USD trading platform VFEX which our community in the diaspora including London should be utilising as part of their investment and also part of their support to the nation. I think from reports that are shared by the central bank, there are significant amounts that are being remitted to Zimbabwe and most of those funds coming from the diaspora just end up as consumption amounts,” Taruvinga said.

“But I think we have it upon ourselves to ensure that some of those funds are channelled towards investments. From investments that is where our real sectors or productive sectors can then draw financing to expand operations or to invest further into processing and value addition, which augur well for our economy and help us to achieve our Vision 2030 of an upper middle-income economy. The second other aspect is that we might also have potential entrepreneurs—both foreigners and from our diaspora community—that may be interested in actually setting up shop in Zimbabwe—either as a stockbroker or as a financial advisor, or asset manager. They may also want to know what it takes to participate in that space, so us as a regulator we are going there to ensure that potential entrepreneurs are well informed and are assured that it’s a process that really very easy and us as a regulator will be there to support them in whatever entrepreneurial activity that they may want to undertake. But basically we want to support our capital markets, we want to market our capital markets, we want to ensure that there is incremental investments in our capital markets from the diaspora as well as from the foreign investors.”

ZIDA, the country’s investment promotion agency, will be represented by CE Tafadzwa Chinamo, Chief Investment Promotion officer Silibaziso Chizwina and Chief Legal Officer Theresa Muchinguri.

Local capital markets are critical to Zimbabwe’s economic recovery and growth.

The World Bank Group says local capital markets as critical to accelerating the sustainable economic growth needed to broaden prosperity and reduce poverty.

They also accelerate economic growth by providing a boost to domestic savings and increasing the quantity and quality of investment.

Deeper, dynamic and more efficient equity and debt markets can be more effective in helping to mobilise domestic savings and complementing traditional bank lending by fostering risk-taking and long-term investments.

Further, capital markets can protect economies from volatile fluctuations in capital flows and reduce the dependency on foreign debt. They also promote efficient governance and transparency, while providing diversified sources of investment.

For Zimbabwe to stimulate economic growth and development it requires long-term funding, hence capital market provides an avenue for mobilisation and utilisation of long-term funds for development. This is referred to as the long-term end of the financial system.

The conference will gather key economic players such as government officials and policymakers, high-profile corporate leaders, project developers, investors, and entrepreneurs, while providing a unique platform to gain strategic knowledge about Zimbabwe’s investment opportunities and business networking.

Despite its problems, Africa, including Zimbabwe, has massive investment opportunities.

For instance, mining in Zimbabwe is attractive to investors.

By all accounts, mining in Zimbabwe is growing rapidly. Indeed the country is be blessed with such a variety of minerals and sought -after ones at that, such as platinum and now lithium, in addition to the valuable gold deposits that are well-known.